TennesseeFarmTable.com

And today, we are setting the table with the importance of 4-H and how this organization is so vital to our community through youth development and adult volunteering. Our guests include Dr. Joe Johnson, President Emeritus of the University of Tennessee, retired food editor from the Knoxville News Sentinel - Mary Dee Dee Constantine and her childhood 4-H story, Tony Lawson, co-founder of WDVX Radio and his childhood 4-H experiences, and Fred Sauceman’s “Pot Luck Radio” segment features an old friend from Kingston, TN.

Amy starts the show with news on several farmers’ markets taking place on Saturday, May 2, 2020

We visit with a Chef and a small, food business owner in our community, Jenna Baker. She owns and operates “Eat to Be Well” located in downtown Knoxville. We hear how she came to run this sort of business, what drives her, her focus on plant based foods for better health, and her “Be Well Box” business model that she transitioned into at the start of this year.

On Fred Sauceman’s “Pot Luck Radio” series, he features one of Tennessee’s oldest restaurants - Zarzour’s in Chattanooga, TN - it has been in business for 102 years. In this segment, Fred visits with the late Shirley Fuller, granddaughter of the original owner and Lebanese immigrant, Charlie Zarzour.

Our guest is Amelia Geis-Scott, Chef and Coordinator of “The Welcome Table” a ministry offered by 2 churches in Blount County, TN offering a hot meal to anyone, 2 week night evenings per week.  Fred Sauceman shares a recipe for slow cooker pork roast, and Mary “Dee Dee” Constantine shares an economical recipe for African Peanut Butter Soup. Plus Amy starts the show off with information on food access in the East, TN area.

Young Farmer, and Holistic Health Coach Rachel McCroskey, Co-Owner of Four Daughters Farm lets us know about her family’s farm located in Walland, Tennessee. Rachel also describes a sculpture that her late GrandMother Joyce McCroskey “Jo Jo” created to honor the memory Polly Toole, an important African American woman who lived in Blount County during the time of the Civil War, who was also an emancipated slave of the Toole family. These images you see are of that statue.

This episode of The Tennessee Farm table is first information for “Food Triage” in this age of Corona Virus - how to support local, East Tennessee restaurants by utilizing the call ahead, curb side pick up features that many of our smaller restaurants are offering. How to buy directly from farmers in our area who have inventory. How to find food if you do not have a pay check, school closings, or homelessness. And we visit with Farmer Adam Cottrill of Sugar Tree, and Chef Trevor Stockton, Executive Chef at the restaurant at R.T. Lodge.

Over the past 7 years I have been sharing stories about people who make our community better through food as chefs, farmers, food banks, farmers’ markets, seed savers, food service workers, and food preservationists on my podcast and radio broadcast.  I want to help all of us in these hard times by sharing information about new ways that our food makers/ restaurants/ agriculture business and non-profits are adapting. Here are links of the farmers, farmers’ markets, food banks.

A visit with Bianca Morton, Chef Director, and Jennifer Justice, Marketing and Events Manager at the Nashville Food Project. This organization is helping with emergency food response after the devastating tornadoes that hit Nashville and Middle Tennessee the first week of March, 2020.

Fred Sauceman shares news of a Turkish restaurant in Johnson City that is quickly becoming on oof the area’s favorite places for good food.

Crooked Road Farm, South Knoxville, TN & Pal’s Sudden Service

This episode includes a visit with Farmer Jonny Buchanan who owns Crooked Road Farm in South Knox County, in Eastern Tennessee. He raises pasture raised eggs, and pork (pork is not certified organic), and he raises certified organic produce. His products can be purchased at Three Rivers Market in Knoxville and he also hosts a CSA. Below is the link for his contact information.

- Fred Sauceman shares a “Pot Luck Radio” segment featuring Frederick Pal Barger - the man who created “Pal’s Sudden Service” restaurants in North East Tennessee and South West Virginia. Frederick Pal Barger started this chain of restaurants in 1956.

Helen and Ellen started The Love Kitchen in 1986 feeding 22 people in need. The Love Kitchen now provides a Wednesday food pantry, and serves 500 meals in house and delivers over 3,000 meals to the homebound per week. That’s 155,000 meals a year. Amy visited Helen and Ellen in 2015 and in this recording, you can hear their own voices. Their truth that you will see posted on the wall of the love kitchen is “Everybody is God’s Somebody”.

Three truths her Daddy taught them:

1. There is but one father, that’s the heavenly father

2. There is but 1 race, and that’s the human race.

3. Don’t ever take the last pc of bread from the table cause somebody might come by who’s hungry.

My guest today is Chef Christian Moorish. Christian’s job title is Director of Culinary Operations and Foundation Chef at Century Harvest Farms Foundation in Greenback, TN. He is leading a 1/2 day workshop February 15th, at the Appalachian Meat Collective in New Market, TN. This will be a workshop on dry aging and how to prepare a pork loin into “Lonzeno” - a Spanish Style Ham made from pork loin.

We also are joined by the happily retired food editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, Mary Dee Dee Constantine and a segment on “Mile Per Balogna Pie”.