Dine Out for Farms week (Oct. 16-22) celebrates the connection between restaurants and the farmers they source from, while raising money to save farms and farmland.
Chef/owner of new Washington, D.C. restaurant Graffiato, Mike Isabella, who appeared on season six of “Top Chef” and was the finalist on “Top Chef All-Stars,” joined other DC-area chefs and restaurateurs along with Bev Eggleston, Founder and Owner of EcoFriendly Foods, in celebrating their connection to local farms at the kick-off event for American Farmland Trust’s second annual Dine Out for Farms™.
According to the chef, ”As long as we are able to stick together and work together, it will continue to help the farms…All of our farmers and all of our local products, we consider all of them our partners because we work together.”
Isabella sources most of his food from the East Coast. He is working on a dish with suckling pig from Eco Friendly Foods.
Bev Eggleston, owner of Eco Friendly Foods, puts it this way, “We do have diminishing farmland. Ninety percent of the farmers I knew when I moved back to Virginia in 1990 are no longer farming. I’m working with 10 percent of the original farmers. I’m confident that restaurants working with local farmers is not just a trend. It’s a mission, it’s a passion, it’s vision, it’s a call. It’s really a call to make a difference.”
A list of participating restaurants from all over the country is available here.
The deadline for restaurants across the country to enroll in Dine Out for Farms is Sept. 30. Please visit www.farmland.org/dineout for more information.
