Cleveland's West Side Market by Cleveland writers Laura Taxel and Marilou Suszko.
Roasted Cherry Tomatoes. Photo by Sandy Bergsten
Bradley Cramer processing chickens he raised at Schmidt Family Farms in Medina, Ohio. His dad, behind him scalding birds, helps./All photos are by me and my iPhone.
One of Ohio's treasures is a farm called Chef's Garden, run by the Jones family. Long-time commercial farmers, their crops were obliterated by hail in 1980. They had to decide to try to rebuild or find another line of work. They would keep farming but had to start small. They began selling at farmers' markets in Cleveland and often got special requests from chefs. Within four years they took a gamble and decided to grow only for chefs, with a focus on special edible plants. Good at growing and uncanny promoters of their produce, they soon enticed some of the best known chefs in America. Charlie Trotter was one of their first and biggest promoters, Alain Ducasse another. Amanda Hesser wrote about them in The New York Times in 2000.
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