Category Archives: Farmer Update

Taste Donna’s Soft Scrambled Farm Eggs & More on Slow Food Day

Posted on January 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

Our longtime intern, graphic designer Junior Narvaez, helped us with this ad running in the Caymanian Compass today!

Saturday, February 4, Grand Cayman’s first Slow Food Day, is fast-approaching and menus are set!  For the complimentary tasting at The Market at The Grounds from 9-11:00 a.m., all of our participating local chefs have done yeoman’s work connecting with their farmers and conceiving the local-ingredient-inspired dishes they will present, as follows:

Chef Thomas Tennant (Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink) + Farmer Donna Connolly: Donna’s soft scrambled farm eggs on garlic toast with grilled green onions & piave vecchio

Chef Keith Griffin (Private Chef) + Farmer Joel Walton + Rancher Paul Bodden: Island Spiced Pork with Scotch Bonnet ‘mustard’, fruity grilled plantation house vegetable salsa & sweet potato

Chef Sara Mair (Ortanique) + Hamlin Stephenson: Caymanian Sweet Potato Gnocchi with a Ragout of Pumpkin, Calalloo and Tomatoes Topped with House Made Goat Cheese Ricotta

Chef Nevin Patel (The Brasserie) + Patrick Panton: Patrick’s Farm All Natural Jerk Chicken with Heirloom Tomato, Chinese Long Beans and Local Eggplant Panzanella

Chef Paul Carroll (Hemingway’s) + Errol Watler: Pumpkin Soup with toasted coconut and Marinated Pepper and Tomato bruschetta with homemade cheese

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Posted in Cayman Correspondence, Cookbook, Farmer Update, Recipe, Special Event

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Hens Rule the Roost in Donna’s Den

Posted on January 12, 2012 | 2 Comments

Bawk!!

Healthier Choice Eggs Farm is an all-natural poultry farm on-island that we visited Tuesday for the “Eggs” episode of Genuine Cayman.  Located in the district of East End, HCE was started by Caymanians Kevan and Donna Connolly in 2009, from an idea of wanting to do something with all the local, wild chickens that were in the yard.  1-day-old chicks are imported through assistance from the Cayman Islands Agriculture Department and raised on a diet of natural chicken feed mixed with various seeds and greens.  From that a poultry business was formed.

“I used to hate chickens! But turns out chickens saved my life,” explains Donna. “I started with 200 little fuzzy balls… Chickens  are not what people think they are, they are finicky! You lose some at first.  I lost 71 of the original 200. They have to be warm, no draft… It took months of research to find the best way to produce the best product.”

Healthier Choice Eggs are all natural, home grown, preservative free, hormone, free, steroid free and are always guaranteed fresh. They are farmed from a mix that took a while to master but produces a tastier egg which has a thicker egg white and a yolk which keeps its shape better and has a nice deep yellow color.  Chef Thomas is paired with Donna for Slow Food Day’s farmers market at The Grounds tasting, and will be presenting soft-scrambled farm eggs on garlic toast with grilled green onions and piave vecchio from the MGFD Cart.

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Posted in Behind the Scenes, Cayman Correspondence, Farmer Update, Field Report, Local Ingredient, MGFD_GCM

Bringing the Farm to Brunch with Maws, Reusing & Cushman at #SOBEWFF

Posted on December 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Who loves conference calls? We do! It helps when you have four of the best chefs in the country on the line, all in good spirits despite the temptation of what we around these parts like to call Grinchmas, and willing to tackle what isn’t the easiest of event formats — but easily the most fulfilling.

It’s called the Farm-to-Table Brunch, and Michael is hosting it for the first year at the 2012 South Beach Wine & Food Festival with guest chefs Tim Cushman (o ya restaurant, Boston, MA,) Tony Maws (Craigie on Main, Cambridge, MA,) and Andrea Reusing (Lantern, Chapel Hill, NC.) The event will be held on Saturday, February 25 at noon at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden.

We’re doing things a bit different, not unlike our first annual Slow Food Day Grand Cayman.  Instead of the chefs determining what they want to make and us finding the product for them, the food and beverage will come together like it does each day at MGFD, starting with what’s fresh and available.  We have supplied the chefs with a list of our favorite local suppliers and have asked them to decide who they want to work with for their dishes, which will each include a passed hors d’oeuvre and two stationed plates — one savory and one sweet — like our Sunday Brunch menu.

Tickets are now on sale for a steal ($175,) so please join us for what will be a fun and delicious afternoon in good company!  For a list of participating farmers, who will all try to be present at the event, follow the jump.  We’ll keep you posted here as we continue to plan this and our other events including Hedy Goldsmith’s home run at the Miami Marlins Ballpark, Diamond Dishes.

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Posted in Farmer Update, Fisheries Update, Local Ingredient, MGFD_MIA, South Beach Wine & Food, Special Event

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