by Brian Garrido | Sep 17, 2024 | Places, Featured Destinations
Back in 1978, when farms within Marion County were a little more common, Bruce and Carol Waterman established Waterman’s Farm Market on what was then their more than 50-year-old homestead. They aimed to create a place where customers could select produce themselves, ensuring the freshest quality without the distribution middleman. Even then, the Watermans wanted to bring the farm-to-table experience to the Indianapolis metro area.
Over the next 45 years, they found success, and today Waterman’s Family Farm has earned a reputation for Hoosier-grown eats such as luscious strawberries, sun-ripened tomatoes, delectable sweet corn and a cornucopia of other crops. As a family-owned enterprise, they harvested their vegetables meticulously, ensuring freshness, optimal nutrition and value. For other growers, they provided a venue to present such wares as Michigan berries and Georgia peaches and a shop where artisans sell handmade quilts, jams and sauces.
Like all industries over the past 100 years, farming in Indiana has changed considerably. As Marion County saw growth in tech, logistics and higher education, Waterman’s rooted itself as one of the last farms amongst the disappearing independent growers. Nearby four-lane highways brought sprawling neighborhoods, bustling streets and commerce to what was prime agricultural land, but Waterman’s Family Farm remains dedicated to preserving a historic Hoosier farm legacy and providing a consistent supply of produce to a diverse public.
More than 40 years ago, the Watermans introduced the now famous Fall Harvest Festival, which now runs from Sept. 28 through Oct. 31. The family-friendly event started with hayrides to the pumpkin patch and has grown to an almost five-week seasonal celebration, bringing families from around the Midwest. Parents and children can pick pumpkins, explore a corn maze and enjoy live music, food trucks, a petting zoo and lots more kid-friendly attractions.
The Fall Harvest Festival has become a cherished experience for generations of Midwestern families, showcasing the Waterman’s Family Farm commitment to becoming a place for the future, instead of a thing of the past.
Dates: Through October 31; festival closed on Mondays (except for being open on Oct. 14)Location: Waterman’s Family Farm, Raymond St. Location – 7010 E. Raymond St., Indianapolis.
Cost: Weekdays $13; weekends $15. Family packages and season passes available.
by Brian Garrido | Sep 17, 2024 | Q&A
Chef Samir Mohammad, a native of Taos, N.M., who studied at Le Cordon Bleu in San Francisco and the well-regarded Culinary Institute of America in Napa, Calif., opened 9th Street Bistro in Noblesville, Ind., with his Hoosier wife, Rachel, at the height of the pandemic. While Rachel handles the intimate eatery’s dining room, chef Samir changes the menu monthly to showcase Indiana’s bounty. Already an award-winning chef on the West Coast, he made the semi-finalist list for Best Chef Great Lakes Region in the 2023 James Beard Foundation Awards. You can enjoy chef Samir’s food – along with that of other Indy chefs – at the upcoming Friends of James Beard Dinner in Indianapolis Oct. 4.
What made you want to become a chef?
I love being able to transform ingredients into dishes that nourish the body and soul. I like how food brings people together and that I’m able to give guests a memorable experience. I love that a dish can transport you to another time, stirring favorite memories of people or places that you haven’t seen in a while.
What is your favorite type of food and why?
I love Asian cuisine because of the diversity of ingredients and cooking styles across the continent. I have traveled to Singapore and Indonesia, where I learned how to make various curries as well as simple dishes such as Hiananese Chicken. I love pho, ramen, and haven’t met a dumpling I wouldn’t eat.
Where do you get your inspiration?
I get my inspiration from locally grown, seasonal produce and am also inspired by interesting ingredients. I like to showcase the innate flavors rather than serve dishes that are complex with a multitude of elements on one plate. My wife and I love to travel – we try to take a trip to another country every year – and I get a lot of inspiration from the places we’ve been and the countries we have yet to visit.
What is your favorite thing to make for yourself and your family?
I love to utilize my smoker – put something on that can go low and slow so I can relax and enjoy company while cooking.
If you could eat anywhere in the world, where would that be and what would you eat?
I would go to Singapore, to a hawker’s market, and I would eat everything.
If you could choose a favorite place in Indiana to visit, where would that be located and what would you eat?
My mother-in-law’s property and my wife’s childhood home in Lafayette. We eat whatever I can make out of the ingredients on hand from her garden or in her fridge and pantry.
What items are always in your fridge?
Always soda water, cans of Lambrusco and condiments. Often leftover Thai food. Not much else!
by Brian Garrido | Sep 5, 2024 | People, Q&A
Social media sensation Amanda Gibson of Indy Dough, who has nearly 11,000 Instagram followers, landed her first baking job while living in Florida. She took the opportunity to learn the professional kitchen trade before returning home to Indiana and the Circle City with her husband, Jared, a web developer. Before becoming a mother in 2018, she sold her goods weekly but has whittled down to a monthly experience at the SoBro Farmer’s Market. On rare occasions, the baking star can be found as an “in-house” baker at Blue Mind Coffee in Indianapolis, where buyers line out the door for her flour confections.
What made you want to become a baker?
I’ve always enjoyed food, and when I became an adult and moved away from home, I wanted those home-cooked meals. Over the years, one thing led to another, and I learned I was fairly decent at baking. It started as a way to have a creative outlet.
What is your favorite type of food and why?
I always find myself leaning towards Asian dishes. Although Asia is large, soy sauce’s umami flavors are generally my favorites.
Where do you get your inspiration?
If you asked me seven years ago, I would say the memories of dishes my mom made or what’s in season. After having a kid, inspiration looks different. I make what sounds good to me. I still lean into baking with the seasons, as Indiana is so awesome with local produce, but it first has to be something I’d want to eat.
What is your favorite thing to make for yourself and your family?
One that’s a little more “chef-like” is coconut dill cod soup. I love its depth of flavor and simplicity. I make it for myself, and my husband will eat it. My son has become a chicken tender now, so when you say family, I say it’s for me.
If you could eat anywhere in the world, where would that be and what would you eat?
My current dream destination is Vietnam. I want to try all the food on the side streets.
If you could choose a favorite place in Indiana to visit, where would that be located, and what would you eat?
I always go to the SoBro Farmer’s Market. Moonlight Baking Company is another baker there. She has a production kitchen and makes sourdough bread and croissants. She also has a cardamom roll that I’m obsessed with. I get my produce from Warfleigh Cottage Garden, use Circle City Smoke salts in my baking and then wash it down with Primal Delights kombucha.
What items are always in your fridge?
Milk. I need to meal plan better, and I like going to the grocery store often, but one thing I consistently have is a latte, so I have milk.
by Brian Garrido | Sep 5, 2024 | Places, Featured Destinations
Once known primarily for its automotive roots, Kokomo is making a name for itself as a dining destination. The city’s restaurant scene offers Hoosier comfort foods but will soon be a central Indiana hub for Asian cuisine.
A joint venture between electronic behemoths Stellantis N.V. and Samsung SDI is creating this change, producing a second StarPlus Energy gigafactory. Visitors can taste the city’s shifting palate at Sokuri Kokomo, a restaurant specializing in Japanese and Korean cuisine that opened in January. Before 2024 ends, Sute, which bills itself as a “dining experience of Korean barbecue together with the hallmarks of a classic American steakhouse,” will open. Four more Korean-focused eateries are slated to open in the coming months.
However, when visiting the lively and cultured city with a population of nearly 60,000, tourists can find plenty of variety today while strolling the historic downtown streets.
The Foxes Trail, a five-minute walk from the courthouse square, is one of the city’s local institutions. The woman-owned business opened in 2013 and offers plenty of indoor seating with taxidermied foxes eyeing your American comfort food, while outside tables feature a view of Wildcat Creek. People come for the Hoosier pork tenderloin, but the grilled steaks, burgers, colossal onion rings and signature baby back ribs are satisfying, too. What can’t be missed is the impressive 60-foot, multi-colored mural gracing the eatery’s outside wall facing Main Street. Painted in late summer 2023, the image, sponsored by The Arts Federation, presents a Miami Nation of Indiana member looking towards the sky.
Opened in 2021, The Black Wax Cafe, billed as Indiana’s largest vinyl record store, provides a not-to-be-missed experience for coffee and audio lovers. Sip a dark chocolate frozen cold brew ($6) while perusing titles from old-school acts like the Rolling Stones, Indiana’s own John Mellencamp or special editions of Taylor Swift and Britney Spears. For professional and amateur DJs, the store carries an impressive line of headphones, turntables and even boomboxes.
A Kokomo tradition since 1946, Moore’s Pie Shop became a pandemic casualty, closing in 2020. Coming to the rescue, Floridian couple Joshua and Brittany Sanchez purchased the popular bakery two years after it shut its doors. The millennial duo kept the homey storefront but upgraded marketing efforts to include social media and joining in community events like the annual Kokomo Pride Fest and weekly farmers’ market. Classic pies baked from the previous owners’ recipes, such as pumpkin, apple and Hoosier sugar cream, keep customers coming back generation after generation.
Other not-to-miss dining options in Kokomo include cocktail and burgers at The Coterie, chef Blake Kinder’s Marble the Steakhouse in the Historic Train Depot and El Borrego Carnicería y Taqueria, one of Heidi’s Hidden Gems from writer Heidi Pruitt of the Kokomo Post.
Kokomo is a must-visit destination for experiencing the progressive and diverse dining culture in today’s central Indiana.
by Brian Garrido | Aug 21, 2024 | People, Q&A
Bake Sale Indy, the dream of 36-year-old artisan baker Cuylor Reeves, sits at 62nd Street and Allisonville Road, wedged between a bar and pizza shop. Before opening, Reeves plied his trade at the local outdoor farmers’ markets near his new brick-and-mortar; now the shop is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. After a brief stint in the molasses swamp of Washington, D.C., politics, Reeves mastered his yeasty art in New Orleans and trained at renowned establishments there before rising to souffle heights at Link Restaurant Group. He moved to Indy for love and his wife, Anne, a native Hoosier. While he once dreamed of opening a fine-dining restaurant, after studying pastries, he decided a boulangerie with smatterings of European and Southern influences might be better suited. Indy is so glad he did.
What made you want to become a baker?
I started as a dishwasher and fell into pastry. I worked at several incredible restaurants with great pastry programs but thought none took it seriously. I got a job at a proper bakery and knew I wanted to do that.
What is your favorite type of food and why?
Chicken wings are my immediate answer, but it’s probably potatoes. I love french fries, potato salad, mashed potatoes and potato bread. There are so many things you can do with a potato.
Where do you get your inspiration?
These days, most of my inspiration comes from our guests. Our main goal is to provide a consistent product. Creativity takes a back seat to consistency. Providing our guests with a great experience that is damn near identical to their previous experience is what keeps us going.
What is your favorite thing to make for yourself and your family?
Stock is my favorite. It’s easy; the only thing it really takes is time. Homemade stock is leaps and bounds better than the stuff you buy at the store.
If you could eat anywhere in the world, where would that be, and what would you eat?
Probably Vietnam. Pho, lots of pho.
If you could choose a favorite place in Indiana to visit, where would that be located, and what would you eat?
[The restaurant] 3-in1 [in Indianapolis]. Their pupusas are out of this world.
What items are always in your fridge?
Duke’s mayo, Crystal hot sauce and pickled Fresno [chilis].
