Wisconsin Foodie

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This week on Wisconsin Foodie

I always wanted to have my own business. And at the same time, when I was really young, I always wanted to be a farmer. These are the Heritage turkeys. They're pretty spunky. They're in fresh air they're in real sunlight. They've got this fresh bedding that they can eat, and they can fertilize. When you get is a more flavorful meat. It's a humbling experience to have to use a food pantry for the first time, and so we try to make it as welcoming and dignified a process as possible. So families can come here once a week. They can shop for food, they can get clothing, they can get hot meals. Coming to The River, from a conventional kitchen or restaurant, I play Iron Chef every day. Oop, I don't want that. The season of giving, the season of thanks, you know, we're celebrating Thanksgiving here today, so it's gonna be a special evening. I can't, in good conscious, just stand around. So let me volunteer, I've come to work. Oh, we would love to put you to work. -Broccoli, do you like broccoli? Some people don't like broccoli. You're good on broccoli. I'm in your camp. Patron] I'm pretty good with my vegetables. Right on. Happy Thanksgiving, my friend.

Client

Thank you,

you too. - Kyle

You bet.

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you too. - Kyle

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank

the following underwriters for their support

Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board representing the dairy farm families of Wisconsin, who fostered a proud history with generations of family-owned dairy farms. Working to sustain the state's economy through job growth and providing acclaimed cheeses and other dairy products. Every product tells a story and every story starts with a seed. Your story, your product, your company all started with an idea. Illing Company ensures you have the right packaging to help you proudly take your harvest to market. Illing Company is dedicated to packaging your vision. American Kitchen Cookware is proud to support Wisconsin Foodie and helping food lovers everywhere embrace their own culinary adventure. With cookware manufactured right here in Wisconsin, we're working every day to make people's lives better in and out of the kitchen. Employee-owned New Glarus Growing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made. Milwaukee's landmark art deco hotel offers luxury accommodations, legendary hospitality, and world-class dining. Award-winning chef Jason Gorman's contemporary take on cuisine, paired with the hotel's "Roaring '20s" vibe, makes the Ambassador a must-experience destination. Society Insurance, small details, big difference. Edible Milwaukee magazine. Also, with support of the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

fast upbeat music

car whooshing by

chickens clucking

beverage bubbling

crunching

sizzling

guitar music

soothing wind chimes

the following underwriters for their support

When I grew up on a farm, and I didn't realize I was gonna be a farmer's wife. We met at a financial institution, actually. I was working inside-- the clean worker working on finances and he was the handsome landscaper that was mowing outside and working in the flowerbeds, and we just kind of met from there. You know, as I was working, I always wanted to have my own business. And at the same time, when I was really young, I always wanted to be a farmer. Well, our philosophy of farming is just to do it as natural as possible from, you know, having them outside in the sun and out in the pasture. These are Tamworths up here, and actually, can probably go over here so you can see they got a big area to roam. Grew up on a small hog farm. My dad did it, just part time, and I raised pigs for 4-H, so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for me to be, you know, living on a farm, and this is what I wanted to do, but I wasn't expecting that he was gonna be someday a full-time farmer. We have just a couple dozen of the Heritage turkeys, and then we have about 175 of the broad breasted whites. So then, Brandon moves these pens one space every day. These are the Heritage turkeys. They're pretty spunky. We used to have them, kind of, just out, and they would end up in the neighbor's yard. They'd end up over the high wires, you know, a quarter of a mile away, and they can get kind of wild on you. For turkey's, it's just the Bourbon Reds here, and then the Broad Breasted White turkeys. These are all pens that have started at the top of the hill by those trees up there. They are moved for the grass for them to eat, and of course they fertilize the ground. As you look at where they've been, it's an amazing thing, how much area they've covered. This pen has probably gone more than a quarter of a mile already. They're in fresh air, they're in real sunlight. They've got this fresh bedding that they can eat and they can fertilize. I mean, they take six months to grow to a size that's half of what their commercial sisters are at. What you get is a more flavorful meat. When we first started farming in the late 1990s, we had to educate people a lot, because people didn't know what it meant to have pasture raised meat. We had to teach them why it's better and try to get the product into their hands to show them how it tastes better. Like, with the cattle, we are moving them to a new pasture every single day, or every other day. The hogs, they kind of stay in this area for a couple months, and they really rip it up, and then we'll move them into a new plot. The quality is so much better that we decided that quantity doesn't matter as much. If we can offer a quality product, our customers are gonna keep coming back, and we don't have to grow as much to sell and to make a living.

Brandon

This kind of farming isn't massive. I don't have big machinery and hundreds of acres to farm. You're more focused on raising the animals for each year, and then marketing them. That's your harvest for the year. Alright, so we are going, now, into our Pick-Up Joint. That's the name of our store. You know, the place where you pick up chicks.

laughs

Brandon

We started to do a farmer's market back in 2004 was the first year. We did the West Bend Farmer's Market. At that time, I had-- my oldest son was seven years old, so he came to help me, and he learned to make change, learned how to talk to the customers, and each child that got a little bit older, once they were old enough, they were allowed to come to the market, and they're just amazing with their people skills. That really, really taught them a lot. But this has been, again, a wonderful life to raise our kids this way, and it really taught them a work ethic. When we first started, we were just doing whole chickens and cut up chickens, and then we realized, yeah, we do need to be more competitive, and so we did, then, a lot of people like the breasts, and so we did the bone-in breast and the boneless breasts. And we had some people that love the dark meat, and that's what they prefer. We have the chicken feet. We have the bones, for everybody who wants to make stock. Yeah, the consumer, I would say, over the last couple of decades just,

they've gotten more aware of their food

where it comes from, how it's raised. They're wanting to eat a little more, much more healthy. Over the course of the years, yes. Now that many customers, our regulars, have come to us, they often tell us, you know, yours is the only meat we eat. We don't buy anything from the store anymore. So it's rewarding to know that they like us that much, and they appreciate our product that much.

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they've gotten more aware of their food

My name is Bill Littel. It's Friday morning, so I'm doing my typical run. I do this every week. We're gonna start off with a food pick up from Festival Foods on East Wash. And it's gonna be a little bit different today because we are picking up a bunch of turkeys with the holiday coming up, that we're gonna be giving out to our customers in the pantry, along with some of the additional items that I pick up every Friday there.

Warehouse Worker

Thanks, Bill.

Bill

Thanks, thanks.

Warehouse Worker

We appreciate it a lot.

Have a good Thanksgiving. - Bill

Okay, you too.

Warehouse Worker

You guys have a good day. I started here at The River last December, but I just wanted a change of career. I'm in my early 50s and wanted to do something that I felt was worthwhile, I guess. That I was making even a small difference in the community. How are you today? - I'm here. You're here.

Woman

You too?

Bill

Yeah. Well, I just think there's a lot of people that are right on the fringe. I feel like there's a lot of people who are working two jobs just to make ends meet. And especially if you're a parent, if you have children, it's really, really difficult to get by, so The River kind of gives them a helping hand.

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Bill

My name is Joey Dunscombe, and I run the mobile lunch program here at The River Food Pantry, and I also am running the kitchen. Feeding over a thousand people a week, just meals actually, and that doesn't even include what the shoppers get to take home. Coming to The River from a conventional kitchen or restaurant I play Iron Chef every day. It's like, you know, what ingredients do we have? Oop, I don't want that. Looks good, but I don't need it. You know, we might just get a pallet of bulk meat. Okay, what are we gonna do with that? You know, do we have some pork shoulder? Is that enough to feed 200 people or 300 people on a Friday night? But that's kind of how every day is. As a father of two boys, there has been times where I've been short on food, and short on funds and, yeah, struggling to make sure they have what they need. And I see people in here that I know. Like, I know them on a daily basis where they have to come here, and we're talking like friends from the past, you know what I mean? So I do know people that live like that all the time. Food, to me, is something that holds us all together. I heard Bill's here. Let's go see what he's got. How was today, Bill? Oh, it was good. We had a huge order, yeah. Looks like you got a lot of stuff. I think 13 or 14 skids. - Wow, that's crazy. I have to go back for a second trip. Yeah, a bunch of great mushrooms, veggies. If I find bigger packages, I'll take the bigger ones, but those little ones will work for now, I just kinda gotta make sure I have vegetables for dinner. If you guys see big backs of lettuce, I need big bags of lettuce. Oh, right here. This is perfect. Fresh rosemary, I like that. I'll take that. And then, I think it's time to get back to the kitchen. Thanks a lot, Bill. It's a humbling experience to have to use a food pantry for the first time. People, we often hear that, people are almost in tears the first time they come here. And so we try to make it as welcoming and dignified a process as possible, and we constantly hear from people what our staff and our volunteers do an outstanding job of welcoming them and taking away that stigma. It should not be stigmatized or a shame to have to ask for help. You know, a lot of people ask what, who is the face of hunger? I like to tell people "Look in a mirror, "because it could be you." Look next door at your neighbor, because it's your neighbor. They're people who look just like us. Food pantries used to be called "emergency food pantries." Unfortunately, in this day and age, that for many of our families, every day is an emergency. So families can come here once a week, they can shop for food, they can get clothing, they can get hot meals, and we really look at ourselves as a stabilizing force for that family, and so it really is strengthening our community, building community together, and providing food and dignity and hope for these folks who, many of them, are just fallen on some hard times, and are working families just trying to get by. You have to solve hunger first, before you can solve many of the other problems that people face. I'm guessing you're Charles. Yeah, welcome. - Thank you. Welcome to The River. - Thank you, thank you. It's great to have you here. - It's wonderful to be here, and it's wonderful to be here at this time of year. Yeah, well, you know, it's the season of giving, the season of thanks, and we're celebrating Thanksgiving here today, and so it's gonna be a special evening. We're loading people up with turkeys and all the fixings so that their family can have a traditional Thanksgiving at home, so that's the aim. So, a little tour?

Kyle

Yeah.

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Kyle

So then you can see, you know, we're all set up for the dinner tonight. You can see our chef is in the kitchen fixing the turkey dinner. It'll be traditional turkey dinner with potatoes and gravy and vegetables and we've got pies and, you know, everything that you would imagine for a traditional Thanksgiving feast, we will have that tonight. Well, I'll continue through this way. Please. And show you our grocery store. We are a client choice food pantry. People can come in, and based on the size of their family, they get a certain amount of food. You know, we truly believe that food is a right. It's a basic human need. Yes it is. It's not a privilege, and so, especially considering that 40% of our population our children, Oh, God. Another 23% are seniors, so clearly, you know, the two most vulnerable ends of the spectrum, and so we want to make sure that we have plenty of food, good, healthy, nutritious food for them to eat. Moving into this section, you can see this is all fresh fruit. We've got fresh apples, looks like--

That's a lot of watermelon. - Charles

Onions, watermelon.

Kyle laughs

That's a lot of watermelon. - Charles

Lemons. - Lemons, grapes, pomegranates. This is product that we get from the emergency food assistance program. It's called TFAP. We have dried fig pieces, raisins, pasta, pasta sauces, green beans. We let them take as much of that as they want. Our walk in cooler and freezer over here, and then what you see behind you is all of our warehouse, our backstock. We go through 50 to 60 thousand pounds of food product each week that blow through here. - Wow. So imagine what that looks like, is, basically two 18-wheel, 53-foot semi-trailers full of food. We go through in a week. That's astounding and amazing that you have all the volunteer energy, and the space and the initiative, but the cut-me-short-of-words tragedy is that there's that many people that come to your doors that need it-- not want it-- but need it. They do. Well, so we are, in terms of food pantries, we are a super-size food pantry. We, through our combined programs, we touch about 1,000 families each week, so it's a lot of people coming together to meet that need. Right, right. I can't, in good conscience, just stand around, so let me volunteer. I've come to work. Oh, we would love to put you to work.

laughs

That's a lot of watermelon. - Charles

Okay, let's go. - Yeah, cool. You look busy. Are you Peg? - I am. I'm Kyle, and I was told to report to you. Oh, great. You're gonna tell me where to put things on shelves? Yes, I am. Right now, you can probably go through these boxes and sort them out, like, as far as the baking goods and the bready goods, pastas and stuff like that go on those shelves. The baking goes over there, so if you can make space and throw all the bakings over there. Okay, so no square pegs in round holes. Pumpkin with pumpkin, soup with soup, baking with baking. Right, yup. That's how that works. Okay.

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That's a lot of watermelon. - Charles

Peg, why do you do this?

Peg

Why do I do this?

Kyle

Yeah. I don't know. I like to pay it forward. I like to help people that don't have things because I've been there and done that. So, yeah, I like to help people, and it's always nice to see people smiling and it makes a difference. It is always nice to see people smile. You know, it kind of humbles yourself, you know, for me anyway. This is a good feeling. Were you a client of the pantry, and now you're giving back? Yeah. In my days that I was struggling, I sure did come here, and, you know, had something to eat, which I was very grateful that they have places like this, you know, to feed people that are having hard times, and so now I'm here, volunteering, and paying it forward, and it feels good. Maraschino cherries! Baking good. Let's make an Old Fashioned afterwards. Yeah, right.

laughs

Kyle

Just saying. Are you gonna be okay? - I'm gonna be okay. Alright. Don't strain a muscle. We don't want to get hurt. Look at the fun we're having.

Peg

I'm having a blast, yes, I am.

Kyle

Exactly my point. I mean, working with Lance has been, man, the greatest experience. I can't wait to go home and tell my family about you. You know my name's "Kyle," right? Kyle? I keep calling you "Lance." Who's "Lance?" Is there a "Lance?" - I don't know. I was wondering when he was gonna turn up. Okay, well then I was wondering when you were gonna catch on. You know what Sharon, you're teaching me a lot about-- Sharon? Oh, you're funny. You've got jokes today.

laughing

Kyle

Oh, whoa, I'm putting kidney beans in with the baked beans. Look out. - Uh-oh, you're fired. Man, you're just not good at this job at all. Joey Dunscombe. Kyle, how you doing? - How you doing, man? Hey nice to see you. - Nice to see you, Chef. What are you doing here? I'm mixing up some stuffing for tonight's Thanksgiving meal. It's one of our biggest meals of the year. You want to help?

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Kyle

How is pantry chefing for folks that are truly hungry? What's it like? It's really rewarding. You're cooking a lot more food. And, honestly, it takes longer than I thought it would to drum up all this stuff, and it's not just a small pan of carrots that we need to peel for tonight's special. Right, it's a commitment. It might be 60 pounds of carrots. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How many people will you feed for a lunch or dinner, on average?

Joey

Between 100 and 200. Two Fridays ago we did 250. And this is all considered "We don't want it" from the traditional food system. Right. And it's perfectly good. - Oh, yeah. Feeding these people is really gratifying. And our clients are awesome. Like, they're terrific people from all walks of life. I love that they're called clients. They're someone you value. - They're our friends. They're your friends, yeah. Well, let's cook this Thanksgiving meal together my friend. Do you mind if I stay and serve? No, not at all.

Kyle

Okay, I'd be honored to do so. No, that'd be awesome, yeah. We got dinner rolls. I mean, it's not dinner without dinner rolls at Thanksgiving dinner. And then we still haven't really opened this up yet-- but we're about it-- but there's turkey. Definitely. Yep, gotta have that, right? Mashed potatoes. - Mashed potatoes. Yeah, just a little color on there, but you know, when you're cooking this amount of food, you're gonna get a little. It's alright, Chef. There'll be no review. Right, oh good. Oh, that's our stuffing. - Stuffing, right. It smells terrific. And then, here's some mixed vegetables. So snap peas, beans, cauliflower. All kinds of things that are good for you. Broccoli, yup. There's the gravy. Nice cold salad, tossed salad. That's a beautiful salad. - Thank you. Cranberry. Yep, you know what cranberries look like. You got that right. That is some-- That's some thick cranberry. It is really. Coleslaw. Some fresh apples. Pumpkin pie. - Finish with pie. Yup. And then refreshments? - Refreshments, yep. You've got a good Thanksgiving meal. I think so. - Yeah.

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Kyle

Broccoli? Do you like broccoli? Some people don't like broccoli. You're good on broccoli? I'm in your camp.

Client

I'm pretty good with my vegetables. Right on. Happy Thanksgiving my friend. I'm gonna make a little indenture here for the gravy. I know how to roll. Now I helped make this dressing, so I mean. You want a little bit of both? Donald, come on, my friend. Alright, alright, now I know you want turkey. Now, I helped make this stuffing. That's what I'm talking about. And have a great Thanksgiving. It may be the very substance of serving, to share nourishment with someone when they are wanting. The River Food Pantry represents that here in the state that grows so much, that has so much bounty. It's a tragedy, nationally, that some people still suffer from want, but on this holiday that celebrates thanks giving, they are keeping that tradition alive and well, and making sure that no one leaves with hunger.

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Client

My day job is a sound effects Foley artist. Really? - Yeah. Oh, but you volunteer in River Pantry. And you know I'm gonna call you on that. Nobody says that and then... Lay it on me.

cricket chirping

whistling wind

dog barking

cat meows

Client

This is happening.

dolphin squeaking

Client

Dog underwater, right? We just rehearsed that one. Yeah, dog underwater. Dog.

barks

Client

Dog underwater.

barks and gurgles

laughs

Client

Cat underwater.

meows and gurgles

Client

Oh, and I do a great cow.

bellowing moo

Client

Shh, don't tell anybody. That's creepy good. Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank

the following underwriters for their support

Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board representing the dairy farm families of Wisconsin, who fostered a proud history with generations of family-owned dairy farms working to sustain the state's economy through job growth and providing acclaimed cheeses and other dairy products. Every product tells a story and every story starts with a seed. Your story, your product, your company all started with an idea. Illing Company ensures you have the right packaging to help you proudly take your harvest to market. Illing Company is dedicated to packaging your vision. American Kitchen Cookware is proud to support Wisconsin Foodie and helping food lovers everywhere embrace their own culinary adventure. With cookware manufactured right here in Wisconsin, we're working every day to make people's lives better in and out of the kitchen. Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer's made. Milwaukee's landmark art deco hotel offers luxury accommodations, legendary hospitality, and world-class dining. Award-winning chef Jason Gorman's contemporary take on cuisine, paired with the hotel's "Roaring '20s" vibe, makes the Ambassador a must-experience destination. Society Insurance, small details, big difference. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The Central Wisconsin Craft Collective. Something Special from Wisconsin Rushing Waters Fisheries. FAB Wisconsin. Edible Milwaukee magazine. Also, with support of the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television. For more information about upcoming Wisconsin Foodie special events, dinners, and tours, please go to wisconsin foodie dot com. There you can sign up for our mailing list to be the first to know about our events and offerings. Also, get connected with us through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.