Baker College servery closes the loop on the ‘farm-to-fork-to-farm’ program

BY CASEY MICHEL
Special to Rice News

Since opening last August, the new Baker College servery has quickly gained a reputation for having some of the best offerings on campus. Students have flocked to the servery from across Rice for both the novelty and central location, but it is clear that one of the biggest draws for Baker is the local produce the chef has begun using.

Cari Clark, in her first year as executive chef in Baker Kitchen, has long been a major proponent of using local food sources. When she was a chef at the Faculty Club, Clark had the opportunity to intern at a Washington, D.C., restaurant that specialized in local and organic material and the idea of running a sustainable kitchen stuck with her. But it wasn’t until she was approached by C.J. Claverlie, manager of the Rice University Farmers Market, that Clark really considered her options in Houston. With Claverlie’s help, Clark tapped Houston-area farmers to supply the Baker servery with local produce.

“C.J. did all the leg work with the local farmers to make it happen — from getting prices and produce availabilities to who could supply what when,” Clark said. “She spearheaded the entire project.”

After discussing their needs with various farmers at Rice University Farmers Market, which takes place on Tuesdays from 3:30 to 7 p.m. in the South Stadium Lot, Claverlie and Clark worked out an arrangement to purchase vegetables from Atkinson Farms. The produce provided is seasonal, and over the past few weeks Clark has been purchasing and preparing broccoli, carrots, radishes and strawberries, among others.

”Atkinson Farms has been around since 1961, so they’re a part of the community,” Clark said. ”The food is local, and when I get their produce, it’s always picked that morning.”

However, Clark’s efforts to turn a local focus onto Rice’s food sources were not limited just to lunch and dinner preparations. Last semester, Professor of Sociology Elizabeth Long and Director of Sustainability Richard Johnson co-taught a course focused on environmental impacts within the university, titled Environmental Issues: Rice into the Future. While discussing food waste created by the campus’s multiple serveries, one of the students proposed asking the farmers if they would be able to use Rice’s compost. Once again, Claverlie took the initiative in making this idea a reality.

She mentioned the idea to Clark, who initially balked — “Where would I keep the scraps till they were picked up?” But Claverlie persisted. They came up with a storage solution (5-gallon buckets stored in the walk-in freezer) and soon the Baker servery was delivering its compost back to Atkinson Farms, closing the loop of the ”farm-to-fork-to-farm” program.

”We worked with some of the students, and they were the ones who started us on composting,” Clark said. ”We now save our compost and give it to Atkinson Farms, and they distribute it among other local farmers. In this new cycle, where we get the food and they take our compost, we can serve the highest-quality produce.”

Baker Eco-Rep Christina Hughes, one of the students in the course, decided to take her education beyond the classroom. Hughes will be spearheading an upcoming dinner at Baker College that will highlight not only Baker’s recent efforts but also the participants at the Rice University Farmers Market.

”It isn’t going to be a regular dinner,” said Hughes, a Baker junior. ”It will be a ticketed event that will have buffet-style offerings, booths for people from the Farmers Market, and speakers throughout the night.”

Sign-ups will be available next month, and Hughes said the message throughout the night will be simple.

”It’s going to be a big event,” she said. ”We’re doing it to raise awareness of how important it is to buy local foods.”