There's no plate like home

When David and Jill Bell go out to dinner, they're often well-acquainted with the food on the restaurant menu. The heirloom tomato salad, the baby squash, the candy-striped beets were likely grown on their organic farm.

"We like to go into the restaurants and look at our food coming out on the plate, so I know how to do a better job for them," said Jill Bell. "I notice the size they like in vegetables, such as baby carrots or baby beets, and how it's prepared."

And she makes sure the produce is clean, because "nobody likes bugs in their kitchen."

In the past seven years, their backyard garden has expanded to six acres, and they supply 11 restaurants with tomatoes, basil, lettuce greens, squash and other veggies.

The Bells are part of a growing number of local farmers who are persuading Utah's finest restaurants to use home-grown vegetables, fruit, meat and cheeses.

Jill Bell shared the couple's marketing savvy with several dozen local chefs, farmers and food artisans at a recent cookout hosted by Slow Food Utah. It was a casual, get-acquainted event, with Slow Food playing matchmaker between chefs and food producers.

"We're trying to get more restaurants to serve local products," said Christi Paulson, the group's president, who hosted the cookout at her home. "We have a great food community and a lot of heritage here and I think people overlook it."

The international nonprofit group's goal is to turn the tide of "fast food" by promoting local food traditions — farmers markets, artisan bread and cheeses, and regional cuisines.

While the chefs and farmers mingled, the food did the talking— savory salsa and gazpacho made with heirloom tomatoes from Borski Farms and Traces (a one-acre garden in Sugar House); minted lamb burgers from Morgan Valley Lamb; grilled sirloin tip from G-Bar Ranch; grilled corn from East Farms; Desert Red feta cheese from Rockhill Creamery; an eggplant-and-tomato pilaf and grilled vegetable salad from the Soul Community Garden; baby greens from Bell Organics; Beehive Cheese served on baguettes from Crumb Brothers Bakery; ice cream from Spotted Dog Creamery; and cookies from Les Madeleines.

It was a great chance to network for Pete Schropp and Jennifer Hines of Rockhill Creamery, who handcraft raw-milk cheeses from their Richmond farm's Brown Swiss cows.

"We've made several new leads tonight," said Schropp. "The last two years we've been selling 70 percent of our cheese at farmers' markets, but it's a lot of work to do it that way. We would really like to have a more steady year-round customer base, and the restaurants are where it's at."