There are probably many of you wondering about the title. Why collaboration? What does collaboration have to do with sustainability anyway? Isn’t sustainability about lowering my carbon-footprint, or shopping for organic vegetables at Whole Foods, or wearing t-shirts made from bamboo?
Well, here at Frontera, one of our goals is to live “sustainability” everyday. And by that we mean we recognize an active, positive and thoughtful interaction in three inter-related spheres.
Investing in our community, our staff, our customers, and the local family farmers who grow for us. Without these people we cannot be sustainable; we are not viable. Sustainability begins with the relationships we have developed with members of our community and it is fueled by their creativity and energy.
Living in balance with our environment and the seasons. We all live off the land, even if we are not farmers or growers. It is essential for us to respect our relationships not only with the people who grow our food, but with the soil that nurtures it. Our aim is to serve flavorful, artisanal food grown responsibly by people we know.
Running our restaurant in a financially responsible way. Without a commitment to our economic underpinnings we cannot continue to support local agriculture, nor maintain and grow our staff. In our restaurant, managers are committed stewards of their budgets. Together we work from month to month, and year to year, to sustain healthy, manageable growth.
Collaboration is at the heart of our commitment – it is the driving force in the food we serve, and the creativity behind how we serve it. Through collaborative action we bring more people into the fold, we generate new ideas, and we adjust the balances.
A Look at Local
Who wouldn’t want local? It’s the freshest, right? But using local ingredients also forces us to be seasonal. For chefs, having a direct relationship to seasonality – having to create with a given season’s bounty – is dynamic and challenging. We get a short window to relish certain flavors whether they be tomatoes or ramps or squash blossoms. And once they’re gone, there’s a deep yearning for that season’s return. All the dreaming, wishing and planning in the off-season – it drives our creativity and makes those flavors that much more special when they return. It seems intuitive, doesn’t it? But when you’re craving strawberries in January and you see them in the grocery store, it’s not always easy to say no.
When we say “local agriculture,” we are not always talking about farms beyond the Chicago city limits. Urban agriculture is a growing section of local food production. We produce many of our own greens in the Bayless Family Garden right here in Chicago. And during the summer, we have an expanding project growing rooftop tomatoes and chiles for summer salsa harvested amongst the skyscrapers. There are also an expanding number of people turning their own little plots of urban soil into gardens and orchards, and others are joining together to create community gardens right inside the city limits, changing the face of “local.”
For urbanites to develop relationships with farmers enriches the lives of those here in the city, as well as helps sustain family farming in our countryside. That kind of direct connection creates community and investment for the future health of family farms. Through farmers markets and community-supported agriculture programs, urbanites and farmers alike can share their experiences and create a different and more thorough understanding of the systems of local agriculture, including the economic, social and environment underpinnings, that sustain us all.
Some Important Questions
Is the meat and poultry served in the restaurant humanely raised?
Yes.
- Our free range chicken and duck is from Gunthorp Family Farm.
- Our pastured lamb is certified organic from Janie Crawford’s Farm.
- Pastured Boer goat is from Justin and Trent Kilgus of Pleasant Meadows Farm.
- Specialty beef is all grassfed from Bill Kurtis’ Tall Grass Ranch.
- All other beef and pork are raised without the use of growth hormones or anti-biotics.
What about seafood? How do you navigate the many issues related to seafood?
Seafood products
that are caught or raised in an environmentally sensitive manner not only
benefit the health of the oceans, but also provide many opportunities to
improve the growth and sustainability of seafood businesses and restaurants
such as ours.
To determine
whether a fishery is environmentally sustainable, we can look into the
following factors: how abundant a species of fish is, how many fish are being
caught, what other types of marine life are caught with the fish, whether
endangered species are harmed, and what effects the fishing gear has on ocean
habitats. For farmed seafood, we can
look into the type of system used to farm the fish, whether the farms release
pollution in the water, what types of chemicals are used, the amount of wild
fish used as feed, and whether the farmed species is native to where it is
raised.
Seafood harvested or raised in a sustainable way,
often has superior taste, freshness and quality. Seafood products that are abundant and well
managed are worth the time and money we spend at Frontera Grill to retain these
products in order provide them to our guests.
We can all do our part and play a critical role in protecting the marine
environment now and for future generations.
Do you recycle?
Yes.
- We recycle about 245 gallons of glass a week.
- We compost approximately 2 tons of organic material a week.
- We recycle about 735 pounds of vegetable oil a week by giving it to one of the farms that supplies us, Spence Farm, for them to turn into bio-diesel to power their delivery van.
- We recycle all cardboard and paper products.
What about wine?
We incorporate biodynamic wine, and wine grown from organic and sustainable viticulture into our wine list. Our sommelier distinguishes these wines on our list in green.
The Frontera Family of Local Family Farms
Ken Dunn & Kristine Greiber of City Farm run an organic farm bordering two very diverse Chicago neighborhoods: Cabrini Green and The Gold Coast. Located on the west side of Clybourn Avenue, just north of Division Street, the farm boasts 30 varieties of tomatoes as well as beets, carrots, potatoes, gourmet lettuces, herbs and melons. All produce is grown in composted soil generated from various sources, such as restaurant trimmings from some of the finest kitchens in Chicago like Frontera Grill and Topolobampo.
At Crawford Farm in New Glarus, Wisconsin, Janie and Andy Crawford have pastured their lambs, which they sell exclusively to Midwestern restaurants, on 250 acres of rolling green hills. Janie has also been raising market hogs.
Greg and Lei Gunthorp raise pastured hogs, chickens, ducks, rabbits and squab on their 65-acre farm in LaGrange, Indiana. They also have finished building a USDA certified poultry processing plant at the farm.
Hidden Falls is a cooperative of small family run fisheries in Alaska that only use hook line harvesting, no nets. The fisheries harvest salmon, sable, halibut, and king crab. It is the goal of Hidden Falls to create an ethical and safe fish program that incorporates biologically sustainable criteria and benefits small family fisheries.
Jeremy McWilliams, age 16, owns and runs Little Farm on the Prairie, where he raises pastured chickens and turkeys. He has been providing turkeys to Frontera since the fall of 2006 and currently supplies the restaurant with eggs. He also provides fresh eggs and chickens to the local grocery stores near his home and fresh turkey to individuals for the holiday.
Trent and Justin Kilgus, ages 14 and 17, began their small goat herd in 2006. They pasture raise their goats in Pleasant Meadows Farm, just south of Fairbury, IL. This season they have increased their herd to over 100 goats. The growth will enable them to greatly step up the amount of high quality goat meat they sell to Chicago restaurants.
Prairie Fruits Farm raises organic, fresh and flavorful fruit and sustainably made cheese. They are the first farmstead cheese facility in Illinois. Their Nubian and La Mancha goats are raised on locally produced high quality hay and pasture, and only their milk goes into their cheeses. On just seven acres of rich prairie soil in the heart of Central Illinois, they have begun to transform the landscape from cash grain agriculture to diversified perennial fruit trees, berries and goat pastures.
Tucked in the rolling hills of Wisconsin's Southern Kettle Moraine, Rushing Waters is one of the most beautiful fish farms in the United States. On 80 acres of pristine forests and valleys, 56 ponds are fed with crystal-clear artesian spring water. These deep underground springs maintain a very cold water temperature ideal for producing healthy rainbow trout. Rushing Waters Fisheries has been growing rainbow trout since the 1940s. This is their first year participating in the Festival.
Bill Shores runs a garden management and design business that focuses on intensive, small-scale gardening systems. He has training in biointensive gardening, permaculture, garden design and plant biology. With over 10 years of experience running organic commercial food gardens, designing urban landscapes and teaching, Bill works with clients to utilize indoor and outdoor urban spaces for food production and edible landscaping. He currently manages the Bayless Family Production Garden where he raises microgreens and salad greens.
Bill Warner and Judy Hageman of Snug Haven Farm raise winter hoophouse spinach, early season tomatoes, cut flowers, and arugula on their picturesque two acre farm in Paoli, Wisconsin. They also head up Frontera’s tomato freezing project each summer and provide us with tens of thousands of pounds ripe, height-of-the-season tomatoes to cook with during the winter months.
Marty and Kris Travis of Spence Farm run the oldest family farm in Livingston County, Illinois. Visitors are encouraged to experience and learn about farm life of yesterday and today, exploring such topics as diversity, heirloom crops, heritage breed animals, conservation of natural areas, woodland management, restoration of buildings, and preservation of heritage. They raise a wide variety of crops and specialize in harvesting ramps, wild greens and pawpaws.
The Stewards of the Land is a group of local families helping to change the world by producing fresh foods for kitchens across Illinois. The farms of the Stewards are all located within a 50 mile radius of Fairbury, Illinois, a small farming community nestled among large fields of commercially-grown corn and soybeans. With a mission “to create, maintain, and support the family farm, to help them become and remain sustainable and profitable, and to provide the same opportunity for future generations,” the Stewards are working to maximize the potential yields of specialty crops like mulberries.
Tallgrass Beef, founded by Bill Kurtis (journalist, rancher, conservationist, and owner of The Red Buffalo Ranch in Kansas), is a group of independent family-owned farms that raise cattle that graze on natural grasses rich in nutrients and high in anti-oxidants. The result is beef rich in omega-3 fatty acids, high in Vitamin E, higher in beneficial unsaturated fat, and lower in saturated fat and cholesterol. Their beef is sold in restaurants, select grocery stores, and through their website tallgrasssbeef.com.
At Three Sisters Garden, Kathe Roybal and Tracey Vowell (former managing chef of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo), are starting their 7th season of producing sustainably raised vegetables (including all the huitlacoche used in Frontera and Topolo) and cut flowers on their nine acre farm in Kankakee, Illinois.
