Merge Presents: Empowering Neighbors – Christa Glennie Seychew Makes “A Big Fuss” About Local Food

By Seamus Gallivan/photos by interviewee taken at Tower Farms

I’m by no means a hardcore locavore; I’m more of an opportunivore – often times, I’ll eat what’s available. Just like Mikey from Life cereal – when among friends and a spread, and the question of what to do with the leftovers is asked, someone will point at me and say, “He’ll take ‘em.” I just hate waste – they don’t call me Doggybag Gallivan for nothin’.

As for restaurants, I gravitate to places like Merge and Bistro Europa for their support of local sources, but I’ve yet to ask anyone at Santasiero’s where they get the goods for the greatest meatball in my world.

Regarding markets and local produce, I’m cooking up some cool partnerships here but have no intention to be all-local, all the time – my favorite fruit is grapefruit and go-to potluck dish is a not-yet-patented guacamole.

Still, I’m learning and thus caring more about our local food system with help from foodie folks like Christa Glennie Seychew, who in addition to her role as Food/Online Editor at Buffalo Spree Magazine is the founder of Feed Your Soul culinary productions (and wonderful website), which produces the wildly popular Nickel City Chef competition, Foodie-to-Farm tours, and tonight presents a new event entitled A Big Fuss, featuring food donated from and prepared by seven restaurants and four farms and setting aside all profits for a local farmer in need. Taking place on the tricked-out second floor of Artisan Kitchens & Baths (200 Amherst St, 6-8:30pm, $30, age 21+), the event includes tunes from the increasingly ubiquitous DJ Cutler and auction items from paintings to pork.

On the eve of the event, I caught up with Christa to learn more about her inspirations and aspirations.

What inspired the creation of A Big Fuss?

Over the years I have known several farmers who have, for a number of reasons, seen really bad times. Usually it is the case of several negative occurrences piling up into one big hot mess. On rare occasions it is a major illness or other loss. It is a helpless feeling to see someone who you know and admire, who works so hard for so little, struggle to hold it together. Farmers have been typically unappreciated in our region (and across the country) since the 60’s-70’s, when farming changed. We need them. Without small farmers, the future of food is grim indeed. I’ve seen farms changed through advocacy. How could I stand by and do nothing?

I am producing this event in coordination with Chef Steven Gedra of Bistro Europa. He and I go back more than a decade, and he was committed to sourcing local food for his someday-Buffalo restaurant before he had even moved back from Boston or thought to buy the Bistro. His dedication to local farms and his wildly creative and amazingly delicious dishes showcase local food year round. We felt that by working together we could both wedge this very worthy event into our busy schedules, so we split the workload.

Do you remember the moment when it clicked within you to become an advocate for local food sources?

Yes. As a foodie and someone who once considered being a chef, I was well aware that Alice Waters and other people had long ago embraced seasonal, local cooking in California. But it always seemed very niche, something that worked for them because of where they lived.

My parents grew up on small farms in Western New York, but I grew up in Seattle. I moved here in my early 20’s and lived only in urban settings. I had heard stories from my folks about growing up on the farm, and my grandmother’s regular drives into the city to shop at the Clinton-Bailey Market when she wanted to buy seasonal produce by the bushel for canning. So, when I was food editor at Buffalo Rising in 2006 or 2007, my friend, Tamar Rothaus, told me how she and other workers at the Lexington Co-op used to go down to the Clinton-Market at 3 or 4am in order to buy produce for the store. This was back when the Co-op was still small and located on Lexington. Of course, I’d been to plenty of farmers markets, but this was different.

We took a video camera and spent an hour or so talking to the farmers who were there selling their product wholesale. It was still dark out, and really quiet. Most of the farmers were in their sixties or older. And they told us stories. I think they thought we were silly little girls, which may have been my fault, because my foodie side was just gobsmacked and giggly over the quality of the peppers and fruit, but when they saw we weren’t going away, they told us stories. And in those stories I could hear echoes of the things I’d been told about my grandparents’ farms. It struck home, really hard. I didn’t know my grandparents very well and I had not grown up in a place filled with relatives and family history the way native Buffalonians have.

The whole experience really struck a chord with me, a powerful sense that this land was as much a part of me as any aunt or uncle I had ever known, and I’d been sleepwalking upon it for ten years, not even realizing that Western New York soil was part of my roots, and in some odd way, my soul. I know it sounds silly, but I can’t think of any other way to say it. It was the closest thing to an epiphany I’ve ever had.

This realization led me to dig up as much information as I could, and to ask questions of anyone who would answer, and to drive out to meet farmers who would talk to me. I was a farm groupie. In no time I saw that, for more than two hundred years, people knew something about Western New York that most of us never knew or forgot. And that it had us all messed up. How could we mourn the loss of industry when Western New York is and always has been farm country? It’s not just farm country; it’s unique and special farm country and it grows some of the best food – ever. I’d put a Niagara peach up against a Georgia peach any day. I’d put a Niagara apple up against a Washington apple, or corn from Eden up against corn from Iowa, or ramps from Chautauqua against ramps from Appalachia. If you want, I could go on.

So, the history is there, the soil and climate conditions are there, and most of it is ripe for the picking – pardon the pun. Our lack of profitability in the final decades of the last century preserved much of what is right about our area in terms of growing food, where other areas became littered with tract housing, strip malls, and more. Sure we need more farms, we need more distribution and processing, but the things you can’t build – like rich soil, plenty of fresh water, and micro-climates conducive to growing food – they are all right here.

Can you speak to where Buffalo’s food community stands today in relation to places beyond?

We are a little behind in the promotion of eating local or choosing local first, but in terms of our potential, we kick ass. Now that whole “potential” thing has sort of become a Buffalo song and dance in recent years, and it reminds me of when I was younger and would caution my girlfriends against dating a guy for his potential rather than what he had already achieved for himself, but we’ve grown a local food scene out of nearly nothing in less than five years. We have 7,500 farms. We can grow almost anything. Don’t let people boohoo about how our cold weather makes the season too short. There are plenty of ways around that.

We also have intensely dedicated, talented chefs committed to local sourcing. I know of bigger farming regions who don’t have anywhere near the culinary talent we have. But we must grow demand and infrastructure simultaneously. We don’t have enough slaughterhouses. We don’t have proper canning, freezing processing, we don’t even have a smart college kid with a refrigerated truck and a shopping list from chefs wishing someone would drive out to the farms and get them product. These things, we need.

What is the greatest challenge in convincing people to go local with their food choices?

The cost scares them. And it isn’t always easy. You have to cook. You have to shop. You have to plan. These are things most people in our society are struggling with whether they are buying local or not. We really think we don’t have time to plan, shop, and cook. As a working mom, I get that. It could certainly be seen as a whole lifestyle change and a commitment.

But it doesn’t have to be.

You can make a difference by simply buying New York State apples. Buy local milk rather than “organic” milk shipped in from Virginia. Decide that, in season, you’ll add a farmers market to your weekly shopping rounds, buying your fruit and produce there. Frequent restaurants that use local food.

I wish that everyone could make the switch to all in-season and local, but this isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Think about this: According to the US Census, Erie County is home to 378,080 households. If every household dedicated $20 of its monthly food budget to buying locally grown food for one year that would inject $90,739,200 into the agricultural community.

Can you imagine what a difference that would make?

Now do it two years, or make sure the money goes straight into a farmer’s pocket for raw ingredients rather than through a middleman. We are already spending that $20—it’s not new money, but our shopping choices are sending that money to Canada for tomatoes, or to California for strawberries, or worse, to China for food containing things we can’t be sure are safe.

What are you most excited about for this year’s Nickel City Chef?

I love that much of our audience will be new, drawn to the show through the book we released before Christmas. It’s also a bit of a reunion where we will likely get to see all of our diehard fans again. This season we will also host our 20th competition and it happens to be a show that sold out in six minutes (Torches v. Lloyd on April 15^th). I’m sure it will feel like a milestone in many ways, and I think our whole cast will reflect on that and feel good about it – plus, it’s going to be an awesome show.

Who empowers you?

I typically consider myself driven – almost compulsively – to do what I do, and I am inspired by farmers, chefs, and other creatives. But I am empowered by the many supportive women in my life—my friends, my mother, my daughters, my editor—who offer support, acceptance, and aren’t freaked out by my strength or times of weakness. But honestly, more than anything, I think I’ve been empowered by the desire to do the right thing. Sometimes knowing what the right thing is can be terribly hard to sort out, but by trying to do the right thing you can at least be sure your motivations are in the right place and that can be both empowering and liberating.

Enjoy an episode from the 2011 season of Nickel City Chef, produced by Nate Peracciny -