Men for All Seasons

Two competing food revolutions are taking place in the US. Our food supply is improving and deteriorating at the same time. Whether in the offerings of grocery stores or the changes in school lunch programs around the nation, America in one regard is sliding further into a fast food abyss and on the other is climbing out into the sunshine by embracing real food.

There is a revolution happening here in our own back yard.

One person choosing to go toward the light is Mikey Azzara, a 27-year-old Lawrenceville native with a bright smile, a cheerful greeting and a passion for connecting people through food. Farmers, grocery stores managers, retail consumers and children are not immune to the spell Mikey casts with his enthusiasm.

Having been a farmer himself , Mikey knows the lay and laws of the land. He has managed an organic farm in Lawrenceville and farmed in Italy during college. He is the founder of the Lawrenceville Mainstreet Farmers’ Market which will open its third season in June on Gordon Avenue in Lawrenceville As well, he is the current program coordinator for the Northeast Organic Farming Association based in Pennington. It doesn’t stop there.

One of Mikey’s “babies” as he likes to call it, is the school garden he started three years ago at the Lawrenceville Elementary School. There, kids get to plant and harvest vegetables that are used in the school lunch program and are trotted out on “Veggie Fridays” for everyone to taste and enjoy. He says the kids love it. They all take an interest in the gardening and get to see what a connection there is to food and where it comes from. And the extra benefit is it makes many of them try vegetables they might not otherwise eat.

Next on Mikey’s efforts were the farmer-chef meetings that took place around the state in 2006. The Northeast Organic Farming Association hosted three regional meetings last year to connect chefs, farmers, food producers and journalists in an effort to embrace New Jersey’s food history and future. Mikey’s input and energy into these events was crucial and more events are being considered to further the connections that were made.

Here's a post to Chef Ann Cooper's website that Mikey wrote in 2005 http://www.chefann.com/blog/?p=123

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Within the past three years, Gary Giberson, executive chef at the acclaimed Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville has slowly but surely moved the school toward healthier options, removing drinks with high fructose corn syrup and replacing them with freshly made lemonade and a Mexican-inspired mint/cucumber/lime concoction that the students love among other things.

He has also formed relationships with area farms by buying seasonal products such as corn and blueberries often better priced than produce that has been shipped across the country from California or Florida. Giberson reaps the benefit of local farms in the winter by blanching and freezing many in-season products in the fall and then uses them in the dead of winter for use in muffins, casseroles and stews.

With the blessing of their food service provider, the Lawrenceville School is able to branch out beyond the company’s usual distribution choices and create other avenues of access to fresh, local products. It is a win-win situation for both the school and the farms, not to mention the students and the faculty who dine at the school.