For over 18 years, Food Dance has touted their commitment to farm-to-table freshness. They are now prepared to put their pitchfork where their mouth is.

 

Food Dance is partnering with local farmers, Mark Schieber & Misty Klotz, to start a collaboration of businesses that further support locally-produced foods that will make their way onto Food Dance’s menu. The first of these partnerships is a small-scale farm, hopefully in the Kalamazoo area.

 

“Hopefully” because the first step is finding good, tillable 20-40 acres to farm.

 

“Ideally, we’re looking for a farmer or land owner who wants to see their land continue to be farmed or returned to agriculture,” says Julie Stanley, owner of Food Dance, “This could be an active farm or fallow fields that can be returned to active use.”

 

Julie, Mark and Misty are hoping to get the word out to these potential farmers and land owners to talk about creating a sustainable food source.

 

“It’s important for us to identify some potential individuals and talk to them about our vision of fresh, local food,” says Schieber, “We’re fully committed to sustaining the land, the community and the farm as a business.”

 

Education is a key component of the venture. Stanley says there are plans for an Edible Schoolyard children’s program to teach kids about farming and where food comes from. There will also be adult agriculture and cooking classes as well as a CSA (crop sharing) program for local residents to benefit from the bounty. Luckily, the food experts at Food Dance will have great cooking tips and recipes to share with all participants.

 

“We want to stress how locally-produced foods help to sustain our community,” says Stanley, “Not only is it important, but it’s fascinating to see the food cycle – from seeds to a completely-prepared meal.”

 

Farmers or landowners interested in discussing the opportunity are encouraged to contact Julie Stanley at 269-382-1888.

 

For more information about Food Dance and their commitment to local, sustainable agriculture, visit www.fooddance.net.

I have never felt as welcomed in another country as I do in Ireland. Traveling to southern Ireland again this fall was a reminder of all that I love about that country. Wonderful friendly kind people, rich lush green landscape with cows and sheep welcomed across our paths, artfully stacked rocks separating pastures and vibrant colored hedges of hydrangeas and fuchsia that brushed our rented car.

 

But it is truly the food that I love. From well cared for animals comes so many cheeses with so much flavor, the Cashel Blue, St. Tola goat cheese, Gubbeen or Vintage Cheddar.  I wish I could of brought back some of the 10 lbs I purchased at the Cork market, we carried it with us for most of 5 days as we traveled to the west coast and back to Dublin munching happily on our way but alias we consumed it all!

 

This St. Patty’s day the celebration on of authentic Irish food begins Thursday and continues on through Saturday (when the parade comes to downtown) and onto Sunday -come celebrate with us at Food Dance as we offer you some great traditional Irish foods… all day long.

 

 

-Julie
Food Dance Founder

 

Over the past 17 years I've been asked that dozens of times. In our new staff orientation we talk about it so the new hires can answer THE question 'Food Dance. Where's the dancing?'

 

I really wish I had a better story. I have thought about just making something up, but over the past decade people have come up with their own stories, or theories, about what the name, Food Dance, means and where it came from.

 

I've heard 'food dances on your tongue' which was once quoted in a review, 'because there is this big dance floor somewhere in the building,' or my favorite 'there's a special dance the staff does if you ask'. All are theories I've heard over the years. None of which are true but I'll give them points for creativity.

 

Just this past weekend I heard a true story from guests. They were telling me about how their adult children were coming to visit them in Kalamazoo, and that these children live in some urban city where they can choose from 1,000s of great restaurants but that when their children know they will be coming to Kalamazoo for a visit they start doing the "Food Dance Dance." That's how excited they are to eat here. The mother, who was telling me this story, then imitated her daughter by putting her hands in the air and kind of swaying and rockin' her hips from side to side and smiling said in a singsong voice, "I'm doing the Food Dance" all while seated at our bar. That topped them all. I think I will use this story from now on to answer the question, "What's up with the name Food Dance?"

 

Oh, you really want to know the real story-forgot about that part for a minute... So here it is. As I was getting ready to sign the lease for our original location at 161 East Michigan Ave., only a couple blocks from where we are now, I had to, of course, have a name. My friends and I threw around names with historic links like Haymarket CafÄ, Ghosts of Restaurants Past but nothing felt right. Then my ever so dear and highly creative friend, Chris, pipes in, "Food Dance." I don't know... it felt right, so it stuck.

 

I would love to hear your stories about Food Dance and it doesn't have to be about the name, since we've solved that mystery.

—Julie

 Food Dance founder & owner

   

There are many women who have influenced my life of food: Alice Waters, Madeline Kamman, Julia Child, Sheila Lukins, Judy Rogers, Odessa Piper, my friend Chris Morgan and now Gabrielle Hamilton author of Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef. Gabrielle owns Prune, a very successful small restaurant in NYC’s East Village. She is, as well, a damn good writer!

I am in a book group. Well it is fair to say it is part book group, part food sharing, part renewing friendships (some new, some very old) all woven into the best sort of new millennium “support group” you can imagine. However, Gabrielle’s book wasn’t on our list to read. Every time I read a book that I can’t put down I tell everyone I know: friends, customers, my staff and my husband, “You should really read ________; it is so fantastic!” Blood, Bones, and Butter is no exception. I love to read books about women who are passionate about food; those women also being a bit offbeat and successful is just a bonus. I related so much to this book. Not to the crazy family she comes from (mine wasn’t that colorful) but to Gabrielle’s journey to her current life, her business of cooking for and sharing meals with her community. She, like myself, wants to cook simply using real food. She writes of her newly dreamed of restaurant “there would be no foam, and no ‘conceptual’ or ‘intellectual’ food, just the salty, sweet, starchy, brothy, crispy things that one craves when one is actually hungry.”  Throw in the pure pleasure of feeding people and I am there.

Hamilton writes, “I had no idea how to open a restaurant. I had the work ethic and that nearly strange mania for cleaning and organizing kitchens.”  That mirrors my own journey to where I am now.  I highly recommend you pick up this book now available in our Market and carve out some time to savor the passion that exudes from the pages.

In contrast to Gabrielle’s book, I also just finished reading Grant Achatz’s book Life on the Line: A Chef’s Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat. Grant is the ultra driven, risk taking, visionary chef that is part owner of Alinea restaurant in Chicago. In 2002 the James Beard Foundation named Grant “Rising Star Chef”and in 2005 Gourmet declared Alinea the best restaurant in America. Then 2007 Grant was diagnosed with stage four squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth–tongue cancer. Yes, the irony is too much to bear. In 2008 The James Beard Foundation awarded him Outstanding Chef in America, the highest honor for a chef.

In this curious memoir, Chef Grant Achatz and his business partner, Nick Kokonas tell of their Chicago restaurant, Alinea, as well as Grant’s cancer diagnosis and recovery. I found the frank honesty of Grant’s journey intensely personal, interesting and inspiring. He shares his family, his schooling and the time he spent with his mentor Thomas Keller. A legend in his own right, Keller is Chef and owner of The French Laundry, a Napa Valley icon, and one of the most humble, creative and talented chefs of our time. All of the intimate details of working in the kitchen of such a legend painted a picture for me that allowed me ‘to feel’ what it was like to be a part of it. There are parts that are almost too painful to read about during Grant’s long illness. Those parts I wanted to hurry through in order to know how it is now for Grant. Having Nick’s voice telling the story of his friend and business partner gave the book a richness and depth that can be at times be lacking in first person memoirs.

I have yet to experience the privilege of eating at Prune, Alinea or The French Laundry but through theses books I am one step closer.


—Julie Stanley

Julie will be speaking on the Local Branding Heroes panel/discussion. We all know the "big brands" but this program will offer a rare inside look at successful brand-building, on a personal, local level.

Over the past 16 years we've make some great food. Working with the best ingredients is part one, part two is the talent we have attracted. I am not bragging just observing.

This New Year's Eve the menu that Chef Robb and his team put together was hands down, some of the best tasting and well thought out menu we have offered. Sometimes when you see the food being prepared, talk about it over and over, then serve hundreds of guests that food, you don't really want to eat it- it’s an industry hazard. This menu was different for me.  As I sat down at the end of the night and truly tasted the flavors and talent shine through the plates I felt so appreciative of what we do here.

For those of you who dined with us that night, I heard a lot of comments to the same. I personally know how much work went into each dish, from the house cured Coppa from Dave's happy pigs they butchered in house, to the amazing variety of radishes on the perfectly balanced goat cheese salad with California Olive oil and Italian Truffles, to the spinach Fazzoletti pasta (big squares of pasta folded around the Ragu) that Robb handmade with the Lamb Ragu I could of eating it for days.

Then was the sweet ending of the Upside Down Cranberry Cake with orange Szechuan peppercorn ice cream and candied fruit. Just the right amount of fruit and amazing ice cream they made. I look forward to many more great dinners in my life and hope you too will continue to support the great talent we have here at Food Dance.

Julie - yes the owner