Chefs Go Fresh

You can’t say that the people involved in this year’s Chefs Go Fresh tour — in which a number of the Washington area’s top chefs climb on motorcycles and take a roaring ride into the country to explore the products, work, art, and ways and means by which small, local artisans and farmers produce the ingredients that make their way to restaurant tables, farmers markets and stores — aren’t dedicated.

The event was a joint effort supported by Loudoun County Economic Development, the Salamander Resort and Spa (along with its owner, Sheila Johnson), Profish, Atoka Properties and others, and hosted by the Georgetown Media Group and publisher Sonya Bernhardt.

They managed to pick the hottest day of the year for the ride, at least in the Washington and Virginia region. Reston Limousine provided a bus for members of the media and restaurant industry to make the journey to Loudoun County, Virginia, to support local farmers and artisans.

Things kicked off with a sumptuous and extravagant breakfast at Chef Robert Wiedmaier’s Brasserie Beck, at 1101 K St. NW, where chef bikers, including Wiedmaier himself, gathered early on a Monday morning. They started off with the buttery squash-blossom scrambled eggs with fresh herbs, a home tomato pie with a flaky crust and browned cheesy tops, homemade chicken sausage with still-green herbs popping of color, fresh berry and yogurt trifle, SOS with ground beef and gruyere cheese biscuits, thick-sliced Applewood smoked bacon, and more — and don’t forget the Bloody Marys and mimosas for the bus riders — all served up by chef Dean Dupuis.

The riders for the day included R.J. Cooper of Rogue 24; Christophe Poteaux, who has two French restaurants — Bastille and Bistrot Royal — in Alexandria; and David Guas of Bayou Bakery. Other chefs present included Cliff Wharton of Urban Heights; James Martin of Restaurant Nora; K.N. Vinod of indique; Sean Wheaton and Robert McGowan of Clyde’s at Market Center; Ryan Sticknell and Dylan Todd from Earls; Tabbard Inn’s , Holly Barzyk, and others — in total, around 50.

With biker-theme-appropriate heavy metal music booming out, Wiedmaier and Bernhardt greeted participants by urging them to continue to meet and support local farmers and artisans. “This is a nice day for a ride, right,” Wiedmaier said. “It’s also a way to highlight the fact that we have some of the best produce — healthy and direct from the farm — that can be found right here in Virginia and Maryland, right in our surrounding area.”

This time, the Chefs Go Fresh motorcycle-bus-and-car entourage took off to the Lovettsville area in Loudoun County, with visits to three different, and smallish, farming operations centered on animals: goats for cheese, and sheep and pigs for the market. All were part of the Community Supported Agriculture program.

The journey, roaring out of Washington and onto toll roads, took to the back roads of Loudoun County, where the occasional development competed for skyline with large properties and homes, set back from lush green front yards. Set off from the winding roads of Lovettsville, the journey came to a stop at Georges Mill Farm, Milcreek Farm and Spring House Farm.

In a general way, the trip was a celebration of a way of life — families making a living on the farm, still; couples — with children and dogs — finding their way back to the land. It’s about a way of life, as much as it is a process of, say, raising goats, chickens, sheep and pigs; and the land and produce; and ingenuity and stick-to-it-ness necessary to do that. It’s about barns and grass, hillsides and pens, bales of hay, and fences and pens, and the thickness of brush and trees.

It’s about Molly Kroiz, who’s holding forth in a barn on Georges Mill Farm on a hot summer’s day; about making cheese; carrying her sleepy-eyed nine-month-old daughter, Mabel, while her husband, Sam, stands in the background. She talks about the process, raising the herd of dairy goats and working the property, which has been in the family for eight generations.

They have a shop on the premises, and so far they make small batches of six different varieties of goat cheeses — like Cavalry Camp Ash, a semi-soft bloomy rind cheese named for the 6th NY Cavalry, which spent the winter of 1864-65 camped on their property — all of which can be found at local farmers markets and small shops, or ordered by individuals for delivery. It’s a kind of way of life: planning, running a business, caring for the goats, doing the milking and creating the cheeses — while living a family life.

“The goats do not, by the way, eat everything,” Molly says. “But they have a way of getting into plants and stuff they shouldn’t eat, like poison ivy, so you have to be careful. And yes, they will eat paper. They love paper.”

The Kroizes’ two Great Pyrenees dogs coexist amiably and peacefully with the goats, although “the goats try to butt them sometimes, to get them to play,” Sam says. On their way out, visitors from Chefs Go Fresh made their way into the Kroizes’ quaint country store to buy some of the fresh-made goat cheese. Learn more at [(georgesmillcheese.com)].

Down a ways at Milcreek Farm in Lovettsville, it’s a different sort of operation, but with a similar spirit, as embodied by Donald Ulmer, a man who has been farming all of his life. “It’s my life, and I never wanted to do anything else,” he will tell you as he talks about lambing, the cycle of birth-raising, shearing and readying the sheep for market — there are also chickens, turkeys and other livestock on his farm. He’s wearing a Coastal Carolina cap, a nod to the university his son Kendall attends. “He’s studying marine biology,” Ulmer said, “and he’s doing really well. He’s lived the life here. He’s got discipline and knowledge, and patience for details. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best kind of life there is.”

“Farming,” he says, “that’s a full-time job and you gotta be ready for it. There’s no real clock, nine-to-five or anything like that. You have to be prepared to be out there to lamb at four o’clock in the morning, making sure things go smooth. It’s a difficult process. The lambing is only in the winter and spring, and you have to make sure the lambs make it safely through the process.”
Shearing is a special time at the farm — weavers in the area come to collect the leavings for free, and freshly shaved sheep bounding around, ostensibly showing of their new ’dos. For more info, go to [(milcrk.com)].

On Spring House Farm, owner Andrew Crush originally set out to raise sheep and goats but his livestock kept getting bitten by rattlesnakes and copperhead snakes, which led to sickness and death. He approached a veteran farmer in the area who told him, “You need to get yourself a pig,” adding, “Snakes are to pigs like cupcakes are to a fat boy.”

Crush says the problem went away “immediately” and now the livestock, consisting of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, run free on five expansive plots of partially forested land that Crush owns as part of the farm. The pigs, ranging from small to huge, mostly huddle together in groups though, with roosters and chickens clucking and crowing in their pens nearby. Crush offers several varieties of pigs being raised for market, some of which were taste-tested during Chefs Go Fresh. The meat can also be tasted locally at D.C.’s Birch and Barley. Visit [(www.springhouse.farm)].

After the stops, it was off to Middleburg for a late afternoon lunch of oysters, refreshingly authentic jerk chicken, Sloppy Joes made from grass-fed beef, a vegetable medley and other savory dishes. All products were provided by the farms and sponsors of the tour and prepared at Sheila Johnson’s Salamander Resort and Spa — a startling and elegant vision in Middleburg — after a day of exploration in the back roads of Lovettsville.