Author: John Klyce Minervini

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

The Mid-South Food Bank is reinventing itself.

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

I never planned to cry at the Mid-South Food Bank — but that’s exactly what happened.

We were standing inside the distribution warehouse on Dudley. It’s a big, industrial space — like Costco but without price tags. While forklifts honked in the background, chief operating officer Peder Brue told me about the Food Bank’s new backpack program.

Here’s how it works: On Fridays, hungry children at Shelby County Schools are sent home with donated backpacks containing six full meals’ worth of shelf-stable, single-serve food items. On Monday, they bring the empty backpacks back to school, and the process starts all over again.

I wasn’t getting it. All right, I thought, these kids don’t have enough to eat. But why single-serve and shelf-stable? Why the runaround with the backpacks? It all sounded unnecessary — and unnecessarily expensive — to me.

Brue explained: “Yes, it’s more expensive, but the food has to be single-serve and shelf-stable because many of these kids live in homes without electricity. We give it to them in backpacks so that it isn’t obviously food and therefore doesn’t carry a stigma. The Food Bank knows from hard experience that many of these children would rather go hungry than be seen accepting charity.”

That wrecked me. Being hungry is hard enough, but can you imagine refusing food so that you won’t get picked on?

On the flipside, it’s nice to think that we can respect these kids as human beings despite the fact that they don’t have enough to eat. For me, it drives home the point that I may be a well-meaning person, but there’s a lot I don’t know.

“People talk about handouts and welfare queens,” says Food Bank CEO Estella Mayhue-Greer. “The truth is, the person we serve is the person sitting next to you at work. It’s the person in the next pew at church.

“We serve people who work,” she adds, with conviction. “We are the safety net.”

Justin Fox Burks

Volunteers

The Mid-South Food Bank is in the process of reinventing itself. They’re already one of the biggest food banks in the country, feeding about 220,000 people in 31 counties around Memphis. But in the coming year, they plan to grow their capacity by 35 percent and distribute an additional 6 million pounds of food.

“That may sound like hocus pocus, but we can do it,” says Brue. “All we have to do is leverage our processes and our buying power.

“We want to be the Amazon of food banks,” he continues.

Obviously, that involves securing more donations, both financial and material. It also means focusing their efforts on Memphis’ most vulnerable populations: groups like hungry children and home-bound seniors who can’t walk. For example, over the coming year, the Food Bank aims to triple the size of its backpack program, from 1,200 to 4,000 backpacks each week.

The need is certainly there. In 2010, Gallup ranked Memphis the most food-insecure major city in America, with 26 percent of residents saying that at some point in the past year, they couldn’t afford to buy food for their families. Among the city’s 77 low-income census tracts, only seven have access to a full-service supermarket.

Perhaps not coincidentally, these food deserts also suffer some of the highest rates of poverty, disease, and violence in the region.

“No one should have to go hungry,” says Mayhue-Greer. “But for me, food is also an economic development issue. Just think of all the human capital in this city that is tied up because of insufficient access to healthy food.”

I decided to try some of the food. Because the truth is, if I were a hungry senior who couldn’t walk, this would be my Thanksgiving dinner.

As you might expect, the fruit cup was awesome. Grapes, pineapples, peaches. I mean, come on, who doesn’t love a fruit cup? The canned chicken I wasn’t as crazy about. It was salty with a lot of preservatives. Where I finally hit my stride was the chili with beans. Admittedly, not the best chili I’ve ever eaten. But it had a nice beef flavor and with crumbled Ritz crackers, it was downright tasty.

Going into the holidays, I’m riding high. I get to worry about gifts and travel because my food situation is squared away. But all around me, 400,000 Mid-Southerners aren’t so lucky. This December, I’m thankful to the Mid-South Food Bank for the wake-up call. This year it’s “those people,” but next year it could be me.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Tuesday: Raise the Roof with Memphis’s Female Food Warriors

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

Girls run the world. We know because Beyoncé told us.

Tomorrow (Tuesday 12/1), come celebrate the women who make Memphis a top-shelf food town. At “Female Warriors, Armed and Delicious,” guests can enjoy live music and delicious refreshments from an impressive, all-female cast. Click here for tickets.

Vendors include Square One Organic Vodka, Simi Winery, Felicia Suzanne’s, Central BBQ, Muddy’s Bake Shop, Dinstuhl’s Fine Candy Co., Bedrock Eats & Sweets, The Beauty Shop, and Trolley Stop Market—plus chefs Jerri Myers and Marisa Baggett.

The event runs from 5:30 – 8:30pm at Brinkley Plaza, downtown. Best part? A portion of proceeds will be donated to the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis. Since 1996, they have raised $15.5 million for women and children through programs, advocacy, and research.

Or, as Queen Bey might say: “Boy, don’t even try to touch this.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Dr. Bar-b-que and Dr. Bean’s Coffee

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Ray Nolan got the barbecue bug early. At the age of 6, he started accompanying his father to buy ribs for the family on Friday night. By the time he was 13, he was in the business, cleaning the parking lot at a neighborhood barbecue joint.

“I told them, ‘You don’t have to pay me in cash,”‘ Nolan recalls. “Just pay me in barbecue. It’s what my blood bleeds.”

In the years since, he has opened no fewer than 14 barbecue shops in and around Memphis. None has stayed open for more than a couple of years, but it wasn’t for a lack of good food. In 2014, Nolan competed in an episode of chef G. Garvin’s Underground BBQ Challenge on the Travel Channel — and won, collecting a hefty $10,000 prize. He attributes the closures to a combination of bad location and bad financing.

“I’ve been doing this thing long enough,” admits Nolan, now 62. “I made enough mistakes. Now I know how to do it. This is a no-miss situation.”

Earlier this week, he opened Ray’z World Famous Dr. Bar-b-que on S. Main. Technically speaking, Nolan is no doctor; he says the name is a reference to the food’s medicinal properties. In any case, the barbecue is truly tasty.

Start with a plate of ribs ($10.95). They’re dry-roasted on an open-pit grill with a spice rub that Nolan calls his MFE — Miracle Flavor Enhancer. The meat is a dreamy pink, enrobed in a gorgeous, dark-brown crust. It’s good enough to eat without sauce, but don’t skip it. It’s a signature recipe that features mostly natural ingredients, including red wine vinegar, minced garlic, and blueberries.

What’s the secret to a good rack of ribs?

“You’ve got to control your fire,” whispers Nolan, with a passionate intensity. “You can’t rush it. You’ve got to stay with it like a newborn baby.”

Justin Fox Burks

Ray Nolan

The story of Dr. Bean’s Coffee and Tea Emporium is a buddy movie waiting to happen. The two founders started out as neighbors in Cooper-Young. One was an ER doctor, the other a restaurant manager. Both had a passion for coffee. So they did what anyone would do: They flew to Portland and went to barista school.

I can see it now. Mel Gibson and Danny Glover star in Higher Grounds, the story of two working stiffs who find friendship in a cuppa joe.

They would learn to make coffee during a three-minute montage to Michael Sembello’s “Rock Until You Drop.” The reality is much more complicated. After Portland, owners Charles Billings and Albert Bean spent a week in Vermont learning to roast. It’s a good thing, too, because these days, the field is getting crowded, and you have to do something to stand out. Something like Dr. Bean’s Ethiopian Yirgacheffe ($14).

“We try to roast in such a way as to highlight the best qualities of the bean itself,” explains Billings, weighing out the coffee on a kitchen scale. “It’s like a steak. 15 seconds and one degree of temperature can profoundly alter the flavor.”

In the case of the Yirgacheffe, roasting yields something surprising: strawberries. Try it, and tell me if you don’t taste them. That distinctive fruity flavor is nestled in a medium-bodied beverage with a lovely, bright aroma. This coffee needs no sweetener. (Also recommended: the Rwandan Kivu Kibuye, $14)

In January, Bean and Billings plan to open a coffee shop on Madison. For now, you can find their beans at local retailers like 387 Pantry, Miss Cordelia’s, and Bedrock Eats & Sweets. Where retail is concerned, they are recalling bags that haven’t been sold after two weeks.

“The Memphis palate is changing,” Bean reflects. “They want to know what they’re drinking, who made it, and where it came from.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now Open: Crazy Italians and Maximo’s on Broad.

Amy and Julio Zuniga (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)

I’ll admit: When I heard about Crazy Italians, I was un pò preoccupato (a little worried). A fast-casual restaurant from the country that invented Slow Food? And in the suburbs, no less, in a strip mall next to Party City? It calls to mind a passage from Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Against the odds, it’s pretty tasty. In the first place, owners Giampaolo Ongaro and Daniele Zucca are Italian, from Bergamo and Sardinia, respectively. They were project managers at Internet companies, and they’ve never been to culinary school. But they learned the basics at grandma’s elbow, and that culinary prowess is on display. Take the spaghetti alla carbonara ($9.99).

“It’s an easy way to tell if a place is good,” Ongaro confides. “If you go one second too long, it’s scrambled eggs.”

While Ongaro talks, Zucca pulls the noodles out of the boiling water and drops them into the frying pan, where the bacon has started to sizzle. He adds cheese, eggs, and a bit of pasta water. Zucca skates on and off the gas burner, bringing the carbonara to just the right consistency. When it has thickened to liquid gold, he sweeps it into a bowl and dusts it with parmesan and cracked pepper.

Zucca’s carbonara doesn’t disappoint. It’s creamy and ethereal, with the heft of good bacon and the piquancy of top-shelf parmesan. Those of us with Italian grandmothers already know this food, but the rest of you owe it to yourselves to try it. Also recommended: the lasagna with meat sauce ($12.99) and the tiramisu ($4.99). I don’t praise desserts lightly, but this is heaven.

The question remains: How do you make Italian food fast? For Ongaro and Zucca, the answer is simple: stick to pasta and appetizers. If you’re looking for risotto al tartufo, you won’t find it here. But there really is something to be said for quick and cheap. All sauces are made from scratch at the beginning of the night; all noodles are parboiled. So when you order a dish, it only takes a few minutes to land on the table in front of you.

It’s fast, but they’re not really cutting any corners. The ingredients are fresh, the preparations are on point, and the portions are generous. I’ll pause while we all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Justin Fox Burks

Amy and Julio Zuniga needed to do their own thing and opened Maximo’s.

Some restaurants are born like Athena: full-formed from the forehead of Zeus. Others, like Maximo’s on Broad, take their time to emerge. It opened five years ago as 3 Angels Diner. Last year it was bought by new owners, and last month it finally came into its own, with a new name and a new look. Try it, and you’ll suspect it was worth the wait.

“We loved 3 Angels, but it wasn’t our idea,” co-owner Amy Zuniga says. “We just needed to do our own thing.”

Justin Fox Burks

Visually, that means better lighting and a more toned-down décor. But the main difference is the food. Chef Julio Zuniga has always been ambitious, but now he’s swinging for the fences, with a wine-driven menu stacked with tapas like Peruvian Ceviche, Portabella Confit, and Citrus Duck. (The new name comes from the Spanish word “máximo,” which means “the highest, the greatest, the best.”)

My favorite was the ravioli ($8). The pasta is made in-house and stuffed with spinach and goat cheese. It’s drizzled with a roasted red pepper sauce that’s good enough to eat with a spoon. The coup de grace is a curl of crispy prosciutto that floats above the confection, a feather in its cap. Also recommended: the Tuna Tartar ($9) and the Salpicon Tostadas ($8).

I recommend trying Maximo’s for dinner. Zuniga went to culinary school in Mexico and got his chops aboard Holland America cruise ships, where he served as many as 350 people at a single dinner service. He knows what he’s doing; now all he needs is an audience.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Maciel’s, South Main Sushi, and 387 Pantry open on South Main

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Have you heard? Downtown is back. Over the last 15 years, while the population of Memphis has essentially remained flat, downtown has grown by a staggering 25 percent. And as the people have come back, so has the food. Lately two new restaurants and a gourmet grocery have opened along South Main.

The first is Maciel’s Tortas & Tacos, just across the alley from DeJaVu. It’s a tiny restaurant that serves up big flavors, perfect for a casual lunch. Owner Manuel Martinez is from La Michoacán, and family recipes comprise much of his menu.

One of my favorites is the chicken tinga tacos ($9). In Memphis, so much meat is oversauced, from pulled pork to jerked chicken. But these tacos strike the right balance; they are smoky and earthy with just the right level of spice. I also like the guacamole ($3.50), which resembles pico de gallo in that everything is chopped — nothing pureed or mushed.

Martinez says he wants to grow his dinner service, and the food is certainly there. But if he wants to appeal to a downtown dinner crowd, he may have to soften his décor. In its current incarnation, Maciel’s is a symphony of gray, with hard surfaces barely relieved by hand-drawn butcher diagrams.

Moral of the story? Office workers may not mind a no-frills lunch, but in the evening, they long for a little romance.

Maciel’s Tortas & Tacos, 45 S. Main, 526-0037

facebook.com/macielstortastacos

Now, I’m all for fine dining, but most of us can’t afford to eat at Erling Jensen every night. That’s why restaurants like South Main Sushi & Grill are so welcome. The food is tasty, the ambiance is inviting, and you won’t need a second mortgage to pay the check. Owner Ian Vo says he learned that lesson at Ryu Sushi Bar on Summer, which he has managed since 2010.

Vo is Vietnamese, but he has been cooking Japanese food since age 18, when he started flipping shrimp on the grill at Benihana. (“I incorporated magic tricks into my act,” he brags. “I could make an egg stand up all by itself.”) He was recruited into the business by his father, Van Vo, who today rolls all the sushi at the new restaurant on South Main.

This is one good reason to order the sashimi sampler ($9). In typical Japanese fashion, it’s sculptural and minimalistic, a feast for the eyes and the tongue. From there, graduate to gyoza (steamed dumplings, $7), because no one ever regretted a dumpling. If you’re sharing, round out the meal with the spicy seafood udon ($19), which is everything I want in a noodle dish: savory, spicy, and full-bodied.

South Main Sushi, 520 S. Main, 249-2194

facebook.com/southmainsushiandgrill

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, Stock & Belle inhabits an ultra-chic, minimalist space near the National Civil Rights Museum. They sell a bit of everything: clothes, furniture, cut flowers, fancy haircuts, local art. That may sound chaotic, but it works because it’s so well-curated.

In the words of founder Chad West, “It feels like home, and everything’s for sale.”

That same aesthetic applies to the ensuite grocery, 387 Pantry. Here you can find artisan sugar cubes, almond-ginger nut butter, fancy cured ham, Norwegian cream cheese, honeycomb, heirloom grits, Jamaican ginger ale, barbecue pickles, and (of course) bottle openers made in-house from recycled skateboards.

Justin Fox Burks

All right, it ain’t Kroger, but you can definitely build a meal here. For example, at the urging of curator/general manager Josh Conley, I picked up a north Georgia Candy Roaster squash ($8) from Hanna Farm. A hard-to-find heritage vegetable, it’s like the Incredible Hulk to a butternut’s Bruce Banner.

Back home, I baked it in the oven with salt and olive oil, then served it with a fig and balsamic butter ($6) from Banner Butter and sauteed pancetta ($10) from Pigasus. The squash had a nutty flavor, which was beautifully complemented by the salty pancetta and the tangy butter. Best part? Everything was local.

“Cities are judged by their food,” Conley says. “So how cool is it to point at something in the grocery store and say, ‘You know, we made that?'”

387 Pantry, 387 S. Main, 734-2911

instagram.com/387pantry

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

A Whirlwind Tour of New Memphis Breakfasts and Brunches

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

In season two of Parks and Recreation, Leslie Knope famously wondered, “Why would anyone ever eat anything besides breakfast food?” Why indeed. Breakfast isn’t just delicious, it’s also devilishly trendy.

As usual, Memphis finds itself at the bleeding edge of this trend. Last month, we scored a breakfast-only restaurant near Poplar and Perkins, and three culinary standbys have lately started serving brunch. So grab a mimosa and your sexiest Sunday sunglasses: We’re going on a whirlwind tour.

If we do this right, you may never have to eat lunch or dinner again.

There was a moment, two years ago, when Tressa Ogles got serious about pancakes. She had just returned from her Saturday morning jog to find her husband and two daughters making a big mess in the kitchen. For some moms, it would have been a bummer. But Ogles saw a business opportunity.

“Pancakes are a part of our family tradition,” she confesses. “My husband used to make them with his mother every Saturday when he was a little boy. We had been talking for a while about turning it into a restaurant. That day, we just looked at each other and said, I think we can do this.”

And thus was born Staks, a new breakfast joint in East Memphis. You think you know pancakes? You don’t know pancakes. At least not until you’ve tried the lemon-ricotta, Oreo-praline, or (my favorite) birthday cake flavors. Feeling adventurous? Take a dip in the deep fryer and order the Pancake Beignets ($5.95), dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with caramel sauce.

Justin Fox Burks

If possible, the food is rendered even tastier by the décor. Everything about this place — from the Tiffany-teal walls to the mercury-glass mirrors to the whisk-shaped pendant lamps—is Instagram-ready. Heck, it’s like eating in a jewel box. Best part? You can sit at a community table and cook your own pancakes at a piping-hot griddle.

From East Memphis to Midtown, where foodie favorite Bari Ristorante has recently started serving brunch. Since they opened in 2002, owners Rebecca and Jason Severs have had a bracingly simple food philosophy: source the best ingredients and don’t mess with them too much.

“Jason’s mother is from a tiny town outside of Bari, in Italy,” Rebecca says. “This is the food that he grew up eating, and we wanted to share that.”

That distinguished pedigree is evident in dishes like the Bruschetta with Marmalades and Mascarpone ($10). The house-made bread is light and crusty, and the exquisite jams are prepared by Jason himself (on my visit, they had lemon, grape, and mixed berry). Also recommended: the Grilled Polenta with Pancetta and Caramelized Onion ($12) and a tall glass of bartender Vincent Hale’s sangria ($9).

Of course, some days you don’t feel fancy. Some days, you just want a biscuit. If that’s your speed, saunter on over to Belly Acres. The farm-to-table restaurant has recently opened for breakfast on weekends, and Overton Square may never be the same.

So what’s the secret to the perfect, flaky biscuit?

“Wet batter, fold it eight times. No more, no less,” chef Rob Ray says. “If you overdo it, then the gluten gets all worked up. Then you’re just making a bun.”

He ain’t just whistling Dixie. These are seriously good, melt-in-your-mouth biscuits. You can order them with gravy, but the Chicken Biscuits ($3.50) are even better. Made with free-range chicken that has been marinated in buttermilk and pickle brine, then fried, they’re warm and crispy, like waking up on grandma’s farm.

Justin Fox Burks

Bleu chef Ana Gonzalez

But the innovation award goes to Ana Gonzalez, chef at Bleu Restaurant & Lounge in the Westin. She took a traditional Mexican breakfast — huevos rancheros — and deconstructed it.

The result is Nachos Rancheros ($8), which made its debut last weekend. Here, house-made tortilla chips cozy up to cheese sauce, refried beans, and a fried egg. Top it off with avocado wedges and a bit of pico de gallo, and you’ve got a brunch so tasty, you’ll wonder why you never thought of it. Pairs well with a bloody mary ($10) and a pair of dark sunglasses to ward off paparazzi.

“It’s best on Sunday, when you have a hangover,” says Gonzalez, with a mischievous wink. “That’s why we’re open until 4 p.m.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

A Q&A with the Kitchen’s Kimbal Musk.

In 1999, at the tender age of 27, Kimbal Musk sold an internet company for $307 million. Since then, through companies like PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX, he has been instrumental in shaping the way we think about tech. Now he wants to help Americans transition off of highly processed, industrial food, and he’s making his next big move here in Memphis.

In May, Musk announced that he would open two new restaurants: one at Shelby Farms Park and another inside Crosstown Concourse. The restaurants — The Kitchen and Next Door — offer simple American dishes at reasonable prices. And here’s the kicker: More than 50 percent of the ingredients will be locally produced. Musk originated the concept in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado, and has since opened seven across Colorado and one in Chicago.

At the same time, through his nonprofit, Musk will build 100 so-called “Learning Gardens” at Shelby County Schools. These are outdoor classrooms for elementary, middle, and high school students that incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into existing math, science, and health curricula. The Flyer recently caught up with Musk to talk about beet burgers, Big Macs, and the long road to Memphis.

Flyer: Was there a moment when you decided to give up tech?

Kimbal Musk: On Valentine’s Day in 2010, I went down a ski hill on an inner tube. I got to the bottom of the run, the tube flipped, and I broke my neck. I was paralyzed, horizontal for two months, and I just kind of said, fuck this shit. I’m not gonna do technology any more. I don’t care if it’s hard, I’m gonna do food.

Why food?

Technology is amazing, but it will continue to remove our normal ways of connecting with each other. Using our meals to get together with friends, family, and coworkers — I think it will be our last and most important way to form meaningful bonds.

In your latest TED talk, you spend a lot of time talking about “industrial food.” What do you mean by that?

Industrial food is optimized for one thing: price. Whether it’s a Twinkie or a Big Mac, it becomes a transport mechanism for an enormous amount of calories with very low nutrition. The end result is that we are simultaneously hungry and obese. We have to get people off that, or society as we know it will collapse.

What’s the alternative?

I call it real food, food where you’re asking, is it nourishing to the consumer, to the community, the farmer, the planet? A Big Mac has 47 ingredients. One is meat, one is flour for bread, and the other 45 are a total nightmare. A real burger would be ground beef with some flour. It’s a very simple concept: What you see is what you get.

What do you say to someone who has never tried beets or kale?

I would tell them to try our beet burger. It’s fantastic! I had one for lunch today. Last year, at one of our Denver locations, we sold 100,000 cheeseburgers and 50,000 beet burgers. That’s a ridiculous number for a non-beef burger. The truth is, if you’re replacing meat, it has to be better. Not the same — it actually has to be better.

Why Memphis?

Memphis is positioned to be one of the next big cities. Where real estate is concerned, it’s a blank canvas. We can find hundreds of acres of farmland right around the city, convert it to organic, and start growing real food in a matter of months. You can’t do that in Colorado. In Colorado, all the land is taken, and it’s taken by high-margin products.

After The Kitchen announced its new locations, there was a perception among some Memphians that you were planning to “fix” them or teach them how to eat. How do you respond to that?

I don’t feel that way, and I’m sorry if there was a misunderstanding. In fact, I believe there’s an amazing food renaissance currently happening in Memphis, and I see what I’m doing as fitting very neatly with that. If there’s a problem, it isn’t Memphis, and it isn’t barbecue. It’s cheap carbohydrates and high-calorie, low-nutrient food, which is actually a problem for the whole country.

Why is it important to eat food that is locally produced?

First, the money stays locally, which is important for any community that’s looking to thrive. And second, when you know where your food comes from, you’re more likely to be a good steward of the land. It’s a virtuous cycle. When you have a relationship with your farmer, you can trust the quality of their food. Meanwhile, the farmer can take pride in her work because she knows and loves the community she’s feeding

Talk about the Learning Gardens.

They’re designed for kids to play in them. They’re designed for teachers to teach in them. There’s no fence around them. They’re right there on the playground, so the kids can enjoy them every day. It’s a permanent addition to the school.

What do kids actually learn there?

We integrate into the existing curriculum — science lessons mostly. It’s a fun way to learn how plants grow, how water evaporates, everything from basic math to biology. The kids love it, and the results are improved academic engagement. They learn more, their test scores go up. And they come back to class refreshed and alert, because they’ve just spent 45 minutes outdoors.

You’re working with Shelby Farms Park to develop a large-scale organic farm. How do you think that will affect the market for local produce?

What we’ve found is that, in a place like Memphis, the demand for this kind of food is actually 10 to 100 times higher than the current supply. The supply just has to be there. Ten years ago, when we started in Colorado, local farmers were wary of getting on board with this project. They didn’t know if we were gonna be around next year or not. Today it’s a $20 million industry in Colorado alone, and they can’t keep up with demand.

Do you think there’s a role for small- and medium-size farms?

I have this argument with farmers in Colorado all the time. I tell them, why don’t you just go bigger? Go bigger, go bigger, go bigger. But then I had a conversation with Mary Phillips at Roots Memphis, and she actually changed my mind. In the end, I think there is a role to play for small- and medium-sized farmers. They’re not just in it for the money. They’re in it for the community, for the amazing lifestyle, producing fantastic real food for Memphis. So even if they’re sold out — which causes me frustration — it’s a wonderful thing for the community.

Almost 30 percent of Memphians live in poverty. How do they figure into your vision?

I’m absolutely determined to figure out a way for them to eat locally. It will require a lot more supply. And it will require scale: You can’t make it affordable with 20-acre farms. But once you start talking about hundreds of acres … now you’re onto something. We absolutely have to produce local food at scale if we want it to be relevant to the community as a whole.

You went to culinary school. What was that like?

It was really intense. I’m a six-foot-four guy, and these little five-foot-tall guys, these little round French chefs, would scream at me for six hours. It was surreal, right out of Full Metal Jacket. Extreme verbal abuse. We started out with 18 people in our class, and only six made it through to graduation.

The first restaurant opened in Paris in 1861, and people have been running them ever since. With The Kitchen, are you doing something new or improving an existing model?

Today we have this idea that food is fuel. You put food in your stomach and then move on with your day. At The Kitchen, we’re working hard to bring back the idea of the restaurant as a community hub. You can feel connected because your friends and family are there with you. Also because you’re connected to the farms where the food comes from. And finally because you know that what you’re doing is helping to teach kids in local schools.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now Open: Mardi Gras and I Love Juice Bar

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

One problem with dining out in 21st-century America is that we don’t feel connected to our food. A plate of picture-perfect avocado toast with fried egg and cracked pepper lands on the table in front of us. But who grew it? Who cooked it? For all we know, it may have come from outer space.

Happily, the pendulum has begun to swing in the other direction. In Midtown, two new restaurants focus on reconnecting Memphians with (respectively) their neighborhoods and their bodies, and this food writer is happy to recommend them.

The first is Mardi Gras Memphis, just across the street from Crosstown Concourse. This comfy Cajun restaurant is owned and run by Penny Henderson and her large, extended family. Walk through the front door, and you may feel as though you’ve just married in.

“In South Louisiana, we celebrate everything with food,” explains Henderson, with a wry smile. “If you put up a ceiling fan, everybody’s coming over for gumbo.”

Originally from Lake Charles, Louisiana, Henderson moved to Memphis last year for work. (By training, she is an addictions therapist.) In March, she made a pot of gumbo for an office party, a casual move that turned out to be serendipitous. Her coworkers licked their bowls, and by June, she had opened a restaurant.

“Seven weeks ago, we had not cooked for anybody but our families,” Henderson confesses. “We didn’t know anything about anything. We just jumped in.”

Taste Henderson’s Crawfish Corn Chowder ($4.95), and you’ll be glad she did. It boasts a near-perfect balance of sweet and savory, with a full-bodied corn flavor that’s as rich and deep as a Louisiana sunset.

Henderson says she learned to cook for her five kids, cobbling together recipes from friends, family, and fellow churchgoers.

“There’s a huge reward in seeing people get better, live better, feel better,” Henderson reflects. “And that’s the same feeling I get when I cook for people. For me, it’s about sharing. It’s about fellowship.”

The other stand-out menu item is the Étouffée Stuffed Po’boy ($10.49). It starts with the bread — French rolls from Gambino’s Bakery in New Orleans — which has been flash-fried for extra crispiness. Then it’s sliced, scooped, and loaded up with Henderson’s signature étouffée, expertly prepared from a gorgeous, dark-brown roux. The crisp crunch, the hearty stew — this is the kind of food that warms you up inside.

Justin Fox Burks

Scott Tashie had a come-to-Jesus moment and opened a juice bar.

Every hard-core juice fan has a come-to-Jesus moment. For Scott Tashie, it happened on Manhattan Beach, outside of Los Angeles. At the time, Tashie was a professional golfer playing in the Long Beach Open. Then a friend handed him a glass of green juice, and his life changed forever. Describing the experience, his voice drops to a reverential whisper.

“It was so … fresh,” Tashie recalls. “But it also had the flavor to it! I just couldn’t believe it. I knew I had to have this stuff in my life.”

The day he flew home to Memphis, Tashie acquired a Breville juicer, and the rest is history. In 2012, he bought the Cosmic Coconut, a vegetarian café in East Memphis. A couple of weeks ago, he opened I Love Juice Bar, a juice bar in Cooper-Young.

Why juice? For Tashie, it’s more than fresh flavors. It’s a way to eat healthy that also happens to be affordable and quick.

“I had my juice this morning,” Tashie recalls, “and I was thinking. There’s a cup and a half of kale in here. There are two stalks of celery, a whole carrot, and an apple. It’s ready in a few minutes, and you can take it in the car with you. That’s pretty good!”

I should confess: Before last week, I was leery of green juice. Because if God had meant for us to drink vegetables, he would have made them taste like oranges. Right?

Wrong. After some hemming and hawing, I agreed to taste the Ginger Greens Juice ($5.50), and I have to tell you: It’s delicious. Made with ginger, apple, kale, spinach, cucumber, parsley, and lemon, it’s like a big wallop of happiness — sweet and spicy and bright green. Try it, and you just might have your own come-to-Jesus moment.

I Love Juice Bar serves a lineup of grab-and-go food items, including Quinoa Kale Salad ($4.50) and Spring Rolls ($5.95). Enjoy one in their trendy café space, or pick it up at a festival. The “Green Machine” is a lime-green 1979 Volkswagen van that functions as a food truck, bringing Tashie’s gospel of juice to the heathen hordes.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Ana Gonzalez takes the Farmers Market Challenge.

CREDIT: John Klyce Minervini

Have you ever stood in front of a crazy-looking vegetable and thought: What the heck is that? Well, good news. Chefs do it too. That’s what happened the other day, when Ana Gonzalez and I stopped by Memphis Farmers Market.

“They’re called muscadines,” a helpful vendor explained. “They’re like red grapes, but the skin’s a little tougher, and they’ve got one to four hard seeds inside.”

As a proud Colombian, Gonzalez can be forgiven for not knowing about muscadines, which are native to the American South. At five foot six she’s a fireball, and she has the endearing habit of calling her friends “baby.” She also happens to be the executive chef at Bleu in the Westin, where she specializes in small, shareable plates packed with bold, fresh flavors.

John Klyce Minervini

muscadines

Oh, and she’s not afraid of muscadines. After learning about them, she snags two pints.

“You can’t take a chef to the farmers market,” Gonzalez jokes. “It’s like porn for us! We wanna buy everything.”

Gonzalez has agreed to take the Flyer’s Farmers Market Challenge. That’s where we take a chef to the farmers market and make lunch. Fortunately, she’s got help: today she’s brought along her two sons, Brian (age 11) and Deven (age 5).

“They behave pretty good,” Gonzalez asserts.

“We’re decent,” Deven amends.

It’s a hot day, so we fortify ourselves with some home-made popsicles from Mama D’s. Gonzalez chooses mango, but her kids prefer cookies and cream. Then it’s time to hit the stalls.

Over the course of an hour, our market basket gradually fills with heirloom tomatoes from Plowboys Produce, herbed goat cheese from Bonnie Blue Farm, duck prosciutto from Porcellino’s, arugula from Whitton Farms, and shiitake mushrooms from Dickey Farms. We’re just about to head for the car when, all of a sudden, the brassy boom of an operatic baritone cuts the air.

“Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja, Stets lustig heisa hop-sa-sa!”

If Santa Claus had arrived with a sleigh of presents, I don’t think the crowd would have been more surprised. Upon closer inspection, the songful stranger reveals himself to be from Opera Memphis, the performance a part of Opera Memphis’ 30 Days of Opera. Gonzalez and her kids have never been to the opera before, but now they say they’re considering it.

“I like the way it sounds,” Deven sings, with an operatic vibrato.

At home in Southaven, we are greeted with a glass of white wine by Gonzalez’ husband, Brian Barrow. The two met at culinary school — Johnson & Wales University in Miami — but their cooking styles couldn’t be more different. Barrow is a classicist, favoring continental dishes with elaborate preparations. By contrast, Gonzalez is more modern, whipping up light, fresh flavors from around the globe.

John Klyce Minervini

Ana Gonzalez, chef at Bleu in the Westin, is a modernist, whipping up fresh flavors from around the globe.

How does a classicist from Los Angeles end up with a modernist from Colombia? Gonzalez says it all started one day in Advanced Pastry class.

She remembers, “It was right after Thanksgiving, and everybody was working over break. And Brian got the professor to move [our quiz] back by a day. I leaned over to my friend and said, ‘I’m gonna marry that man.'”

For lunch, we’re having … everything. Today’s menu includes grilled pork chops and salmon and steak. And peach sangria, and roasted veggies, and a watermelon salad. I assume that Gonzalez and her husband are showing off for the newspaper reporter, but Barrow sets me straight.

“Oh no,” he admonishes, “we do this every Saturday. This is just lunch.”

Lunch, indeed. While I sip wine and snap photos, the family gets to work. After 15 years of marriage, Gonzalez and Barrow function like a well-oiled machine, wordlessly, seeming to read one another’s thoughts. While she whisks the sauce, he’s outside on the grill. Even little Deven gets in on the action, trimming green beans and peeling a turnip.

“My kids are like me,” Gonzalez confesses. “They’re always working.”

John Klyce Minervini

watermelon salad

At last it’s time to eat. The meats are succulent and well-spiced, but by far the best thing on the table is the watermelon salad: an artful arrangement that includes arugula and baby kale, heirloom tomatoes, herbed goat cheese, and duck prosciutto.

True, you can buy most of these ingredients at the grocery store. But getting them fresh from the farmers market makes a difference. The flavors are electric; they are followed by little exclamation marks. Drizzle this salad with a lemon zest vinaigrette, and you’ll never look at watermelon the same way again.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now open: Bedrock Eats & Sweets and Guilt-Free Pastries.

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Brandi Marter doesn’t have much time for instruction manuals. Back in 2009, she decided it was time to leave her job in medical software. So she did what anyone would do: She responded to a Craigslist ad and took a job as a pastry chef in a nursing home.

“That’s my approach,” she confesses. “I dive in, and then I have no choice but to figure it out. I have to figure it out right then.

“Thank God for YouTube,” she adds.

That might sound like an episode of I Love Lucy, but Marter made it work. Cakes turned into waffles, and before long, she was cooking Paleo food for some of the highest-performing athletes in the city. This Sunday, she will celebrate the grand opening of her new café on South Main, Bedrock Eats & Sweets.

So what’s Paleo? It’s a diet based on fruits, vegetables, nuts, and lean meats — one that cuts out things like grains, dairy, sugar, and processed foods. The name comes from Paleolithic man, and the diet is supposedly based on what our prehistoric ancestors would have eaten. But Marter says she has her doubts.

“I get really tired of the caveman thing,” she admits. “We don’t eat like cavemen. That has almost nothing to do with it.

“The main thing is, it’s gotta be fun,” she continues. “These Paleo guys will tell you we eat to fuel our bodies. But if I couldn’t have a brownie every now and then, I would quit.”

Justin Fox Burks

Bedrock’s waffles

You can taste the fun in dishes like the Peanut Butter and Banana Waffle ($8.50). Here, ingredients like organic almond flour, grass-fed butter, and coconut sugar take the place of traditional baking staples, and the results are off the hook.

Despite being gluten-free, the waffles are impossibly light and fluffy, with a nice, crunchy crust. The combination of peanut butter and maple syrup gets my vote every time. Best part? At 30 grams of protein, they’re practically a meal in themselves.

“Three years ago,” Marter recalls, “my skin was terrible, my hair was brittle, and I was about 20 pounds heavier. The worst thing was, my stomach hurt all the time.”

“But then I went Paleo,” she continues, “and then it was like, there’s this level of energy that coffee can’t even touch. You don’t want to sit on the couch. You want to get up and do things.”

Going gluten-free is like getting a tattoo — there’s usually a story involved. That’s certainly the case for Brandon Thomas. Today, at age 30, he’s a slender guy with a contemplative aspect. But when he was 16, he weighed 300 pounds.

“You remember Kenan & Kel?” Thomas asks. “The quote ‘Who loves orange soda?’ Well, that was me. I loved orange soda.”

Thomas says the turning point was coming home to take care of his parents, who suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure. Little by little, he taught himself to cook healthy. For the past year, he’s been selling gluten-free desserts at places like Stone Soup Cafe and Miss Cordelia’s. Now he’s opened his own pop-up shop, Guilt Free Pastries, just across the street from Bedrock.

I recommend starting with the Caramel Avocado Brownie ($15 for four). Avocado, you ask? Why yes. As a stand-in for butter, it helps to keep the brownies light and cakey. The vegan chocolate chips are rich and dark, and the caramel sauce — made with organic medjool dates — is (quite literally) the icing on the cake. From there, you might graduate to the Vegan Snickerdoodle Cookie Bites ($12 for four).

“She’s the most sinful,” Thomas says, gazing wantonly at a caramel brownie. “She has 90 calories.”

Ironically enough, Thomas draws inspiration from the very junk foods that used to give him so much trouble: Twinkies, cinnamon buns, MoonPies. (Actually, you wouldn’t believe how many vegan and gluten-free chefs say this kind of thing.) But Thomas says his pastries aren’t just a sweet treat: He’s trying to help people reconnect with their bodies and live better lives.

“Most of what we eat now isn’t food,” he opines. “Half of those chemicals, you can find them in spritz bottles under your sink.

“The goal is to become human again,” he continues. “I’m not trying to make millions. I’m trying to help millions.”