The 4th Annual Artisan Cup & Fork Review

What an event! If you were able to attend this year’s Artisan Cup & Fork, then maybe you are having similar feelings: excitement, delight, enjoyment, joy, and the list goes on and on. It may be bias, but we simply can’t imagine a better environment or community of people to celebrate our local food system.

This year, the Artisan Cup & Fork was held at Bluestem Hall, which is located on the border of Urbana and Savoy. The Land Connection chose this venue because we fell in love with the building and surrounding prairie conservation area, but after meeting the owners Abbie and Tim Frank, we also fell in love with them! The Franks have done an incredible job transitioning Abbie’s family farm shed into an amazing space that truly captures the natural beauty of central Illinois.

Over the past few years, TLC has been working to build the Artisan Cup & Fork into our area’s biggest celebration of local foods. The event showcases local chefs, farmers, and producers through a chef competition. We create teams for the event that are led by a chef and include dairy, meat, and produce farmers and producers. Many of the chefs choose to feature local grain producers as well and, this year, we were thrilled to have a micro-green producer on many of the teams. Based on feedback from our attendees last year, we decided to build a brewery competition into this year’s event. We were excited to have four brewers interested in competing to create the most local beer using regionally grown hops, grains, herbs, and produce.

Chefs Crystol Smith and Mike Murphy won the Grand Prize and People’s Choice awards for best food at the event, Hand of Fate Brewery won the Grand Prize for beer, 25 O’Clock won the People’s Choice award for beer.

The food, drinks, and other farm products are what truly made the night. Here is a bit about the people behind the event, as well as the delicious food and drinks they served guests.

FLOWERS
Delight Flower Farm – Maggie Taylor

FOOD
Team 1 – Chef Ryan Rogiers
Chef Ryan Rogiers is the owner and head chef of The Wheelhouse in St. Joseph, Illinois. He cooked slow roasted pork with vegetables and sitting on cheesy grits.

Meat: Willow Creek Farm – Traci Lipps
Produce: PrairiErth Farm – Katie & Hans Bishop
Dairy: Marcoot Jersey Creamery – Amy Marcoot
Grains: Funks Grove Heritage Fruits & Grain – Johnny Funk, Katie Funk, and Jeff Hake
Micro-greens: Diamond’s Homestead – Ricky Neister

Team 2 – Chef Kenny Hogue
Chef Kenny Hogue is the owner of Cast Iron Pub in Tuscola, Illinois and will soon be opening a restaurant called Irma Lou’s Kitchen. He cooked braised goat over bloody butcher polenta with puffed grains and smoked gouda.

Meat: Kilgus Farmstead – Justin Kilgus
Produce: Brackett Farm – Bob Brackett
Dairy: Ropp Jersey Creamery – Ken Ropp
Grain: Janie’s Mill – Jill Cummings

Team 3 – Chef Anne Caye
Chef Anne Caye is a personal chef in Champaign-Urbana. She served a smoked chicken taco with street corn, pico de gallo, Kickapoo hard cheese, and topped with Daikon micro greens on a homemade Floriani Flint corn tortilla.

Meat: Harvest Table Foods – Patty Gray
Produce: Blue Moon Farm – Shea Belahi & Lorien Carsey
Dairy: Ludwig Farmstead Creamery – Devin Hamilton
Grains: Funks Grove Heritage Fruits & Grain – Johnny Funk, Katie Funk, and Jeff Hake
Micro-greens: Diamond’s Homestead – Ricky Neister

Team 4 – Chefs Crystol Smith & Mike Murphy
Chefs Crystol Smith and Mike Murphy work at the University of Illinois’ Ikenberry Dining Hall. They served guests a mojo marinated Cuban sandwich featuring homemade French bread and Havarti cheese.

Meat: Moore Family Farms – Diann Moore
Produce: Meyer Produce – Molly & Ben Oberg
Dairy: Ludwig Farmstead Creamery – Devin Hamilton
Grain: Janie’s Mill – Jill Cummings

Team 5 – Chef Leah Bodine
Chef Leah Bodine runs her own catering business, the Blue Dragonfly. She served filete azul con pera y quesa feta, which featured caramelized pears, onions, and carrots, topped with a Spanish rubbed filet mignon and garnished with blue and feta cheeses and micro-greens.

Meat: Triple S Farms – Stan Schutte
Produce: Sola Gratia Farm – Traci Barkley
Dairy: Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery – Wes Jarrell & Leslie Cooperband
Micro-greens: Diamond’s Homestead – Ricky Neister

Dessert – Heidi Leuszler

BEER

25 O’Clock Brewery, Tom Sheehan and Jim Creason – 25 O’Clock brewed a farmhouse ale with wheat from Janie’s Farm, hops from Land Locked Hops, and Lemon Verbena from Jim’s yard.
Lil Beaver Brewery, Chad Bevers – Lil Beaver brewed a beer called, “Caramel Corn,” which utilized popcorn from Funks Grove Heritage Fruit and Grains and hops from Land Locked Hops.
Hand of Fate Brewing, Mike Allison – Hand of Fate brewed a saison utilizing hard red winter wheat and rye from Janie’s Mill, hops from Hallowed Hops, herbs from Moon Girl Farm, local honey from Beezie Girl, and a hybrid saison yeast strain from Omega Yeast Lab.
Emancipation Brewing, Lincoln Slagel – Emancipation brewed an American Wheat Beer made with locally grown Turkish red wheat and blue popcorn, cascade hops grown at the brewery, and dry hopped with Chinook grown at Land Locked Hops.

SPONSORS
Eggplant Sponsors