Twinn Bridges, Slow Food Movement, funny chickens, and Chef Gray





Chef Tom Gray and Assistant Chef getting lunch ready!

Sunday is a day of rest.  Or a day to run with chickens, tour a wonderful earth-friendly farm, buy awesome produce (still sad I was too late for those lovely colorful carrots), picnic with my girls and one grandma, and eat a wonderful farm fresh lunch.  Although it was quite hot, we had a lovely time, chatted with Chef Gray about supporting local farmers and the importance of buying local and using the best, fresh ingredients as possible, and got to see about 250 chickens run amuck, happy and well fed (the way it should be).

With chickens running free range, eating the restaurant leftovers and farm scraps and bugs (easy natural pest control), eggs are rich in yellow color in the yolk and so flavorful.  My egg salad sandwich, salad, homemade chips, and chocolate chip cookie was a great introduction to the farm as we arrived early to do the 1:30 pm tour.  Farm owner Scott Francis also shared with us that Chef Kenny Gilbert will buy fromTwinn Bridges for his new restaurant, Nippers Beach and Grille, set to open right before Memorial Day in Jacksonville Beach.

During the tour, we viewed the transitional crops from spring to summer, learned how Twinn Bridges uses biodiesel fuel (even demonstrated how clean the tractor runs) converted from spent restaurant vegetable oil, how natural pest control methods are employed (love the windshield wiper scarecrow, wonder how to make one to keep my kids in their beds at night), how seedlings are handled to transfer to the crops, walked through the greenhouses (tried to eat the chard right out of the raised bed), and overall, got incredible insight of how much backbreaking hard work and dedication it takes to run this farm.  But oh, the produce it offers: 

Chef Gray provided sample produce during his talk, and I love that my youngest finally ate her sugar snap peas raw and very happily! With fresh, sweet and delicious  produce like this, who can resist? And I love, love, love that we are not consuming typical pesticide chemicals. 

After the talk, we sat on our picnic blanket, resting in the shade, and soaking in the environment.  Girls wanted to take some chickens home, but I had to break it to them that taking them home was not part of the tour.  I went crazy at the farmstand and bought rainbow chard (cut fresh for me, thanks to those lovely ladies!), Russian kale (see pic below after I steamed it for dinner that night), sugar snap peas (devoured by the kiddos at home), soaps made from recycled oils, strawberry cake, and carrot cake.  Luckily, Twinn Bridges sells their lovely produce at Neptune Beach farmers market Saturdays from 2:00 - 5:00 p.m.  A bit of a hike for me but who cares? It's almost summer and it gives us an excuse to hit the beach more often! Here's what my steamed kale looked like, dressed simply in good quality extra virgin olive oil, sea salt & freshly ground black pepper:

Check out this article from Florida Times Union for a detailed article about Chef Gray and Bistro Aix's commitment to buying local, from farms like Twinn Bridges.  Kudos to Scott and Denise Francis (and all the Slow Food farm tour participants and volunteers) and Chef Gray and his staff for sharing their passions! Buy local, buy fresh, folks!