Wisconsin Foodie

– Luke: This week on Wisconsin Foodie .

– Kris: Oh, good morning, girls.

– Polly: Good morning, babies.

– Kris: Any eggs for us this morning?

– Polly: Oh, she just laid, look.

It's fresh from her body.

– Luke: So this is Two Girls and a Farm.

Would you walk me through the operation?

- I will be honored to.

Come on!

– Luke: Great, let's go!

– Polly: I knew I wanted to have something like this.

Something that I can build with the soil.

I can grow food for local community, you know, I can teach people the connection between your plate and nature.

– Kris: So many people have come into our property for the very first time and said, "You have a different energy here."

– Luke: So I kind of thought today we would put together some paella.

We're gonna make a few adaptations.

I have some Wisconsin ingredients.

You brought some of the ingredients from your farm that are relative to Brazil.

- Food brings people together.

- Yeah.

– Polly: It's beautiful.

– Luke: It is beautiful.

Mmm, that's perfect.

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- At Organic Valley, our cows make milk with just a few simple ingredients: Sun, soil, rain, and grass.

And grass, and grass.

- Yee-haw!

- Organic Valley Grassmilk, organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

- 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.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from the Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site, high quality butchering and packaging, the Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin is the largest local hunger relief organization in the state.

With your help, we ensure your neighbors in need don't have to worry where their next meal may come from.

Learn more at feedingamericawi.org.

- Additional support from the following underwriters.

[groovy music] Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[upbeat music] - Luke: We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet.

We are a merging of cultures and ideas, shaped by this land.

[sizzling] We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

[glasses clink] We are storytellers.

We are Wisconsin Foodie .

[gentle acoustic guitar music] [rooster crowing] - Kris: Oh, good morning, girls.

– Polly: Good morning, babies.

– Kris: Any eggs for us this morning?

- We were looking for houses here.

And I knew the first thing we were going to do was to get chickens 'cause I just love them.

[laughing] For me, they're my pets.

[laughing] Elvis, leave you sister alone.

They lay eggs through the day.

Oh, she just laid, look.

It's fresh from her body.

It just came, Red.

– Kris: We're primarily a place of education and bringing community together and showing them how you can compost and that brings life to your garden.

– Polly: I'm Brazilian.

I arrived in this country eight years ago.

We used to live in Peru.

So I studied at Le Cordon Bleu to become a professional chef.

I'm extremely grateful for that.

And we were there for two and a half years.

And then we came here.

– Kris: I grew up here in Wisconsin.

I'm from the West Allis area.

So I've been really blessed to travel the world.

And there is really no place more beautiful than Wisconsin.

- We have 60 fruit trees going on in the farm.

It's Milwaukee apple, it's actually native.

We always leave 20%, 30% to the birds, to wildlife, 'cause they are also hungry.

So we put a comfrey in the middle of the trees because this plant put in nutrition in the soil that those trees are taking from the soil.

So it's like a perfect marriage, like Kris and I.

[laughing] I love that plant.

– Kris: So many people have come into our property for the very first time and said, "You have a different energy here."

This year, we've transformed to a farm stand.

So you know, we're growing, and then we're carrying our produce down and gonna make it available for the community.

This is just too cute.

– Polly: It's cute.

– Luke: Coming out here, 20, 25 minutes outside of the city, all the sense of society kind of feel like they are relieved.

[dog barks] - Polly: Hello!

- Hey, hey.

- Nice meeting you!

Thank you for coming.

- Thank you for having us.

- Oh my goodness, my pleasure.

[chickens clucking] - Luke: So this is Two Girls and a Farm.

Would you walk me through the operation?

- I will be honored to.

Come on.

- Great, let's go.

– Polly: So here we have our chicken coop.

What I really love about this coop is it's so open and then we put the eggs right here.

I will show you how gorgeous they are.

I actually separated three dozen, 'cause I want you guys to go back with eggs.

We do not wash them.

– Luke: Okay.

– Polly: Because if you don't wash them, they last longer.

So people just come here, collect their own.

They feel like part of it.

That's the beauty, you know?

– Kris: They come right in.

- Yeah, we kind of put some rules just to remind people that's their house.

And the first rule is be kind to the chickens.

The second is do not chase them.

[laughing] Contain your emotions.

[all laughing] And only pick eggs with permission.

– Luke: Sure.

- And then my lovely wife reminded me to put a please up there.

– Luke: Please, oh yeah, yeah.

Please respect the rules and thank you for coming.

– Polly: But they lay their eggs right here.

And this coop, everything is reused.

And we convert it to their nests.

And we have our ducks.

We have three female ducks.

One is broody.

You can see she's protecting her eggs.

- Sure.

- She doesn't understand we don't have a male duck.

So she's not gonna become a mama.

- That's okay.

- But whatever.

[all laughing] - You can't blame a girl for trying.

– Polly: Right.

That's Elvis Presley over there.

– Luke: Yeah.

– Polly: Look at his hair.

– Luke: He is a hunka hunka burnin' love, isn't he?

[laughs] [Luke imitates Elvis Presley] - And that behind you is Bob Dylan.

- Hey, Bob.

– Polly: The most... - Luke: [imitating Bob Dylan] Hey.

[all laughing] - Polly: We put those ladders that we found on the garbage, people's different garbage.

That's why Kris doesn't like me to go out with the truck.

Because I come back-- - Luke: 'Cause you come back with more than you left with?

– Polly: Yes.

– Kris: That's right.

– Polly: But the chickens appreciate.

And then so they hang over here and we also have a beehive over there.

So let's go see the beehive.

- Yeah.

- All right, let's do it.

Oh, I see a few back here.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

I started just to learn 'cause I wasn't really familiar with it, but then we understood how important, you know it is.

And for pollination, we don't even collect the honey 'cause it's just one hive and they work pretty hard for their food.

So we just leave it over there.

– Luke: Sure.

- But mostly for pollination, yeah.

Our trees produce much more.

Our garden produce much more because of those bees.

- Cool, what's next?

- Well, we are going down to see part of the orchard and then we can finish by the gardens, okay?

– Luke: This is exciting.

– Polly: Yeah!

So we have pawpaw trees, we have apricot trees on the edges, and then we have apples and then we have pears, and then we have cherries in the middle.

And they all have their time to do their thing.

– Kris: They're still young.

– Luke: Sure.

– Polly: Yes.

And obviously the comfrey, which I love.

– Luke: That's the comfrey.

– Polly: That's the comfrey.

Isn't that a beautiful plant?

– Luke: It is a beautiful plant.

– Polly: So that's the perfect marriage I was talking about.

– Luke: Mm-hmm, yeah.

– Polly: Many people who work with permaculture just adore that plant.

Because especially when you done harvesting, you just take the plant and kind of sprinkle all over and that's kind of like what a green bean does to the soil.

Put the nitrogen back, you know?

So that's pretty much what the comfrey is doing over here.

– Luke: That's very cool.

So you start this process from scratch?

– Polly: Yes, and all by hand.

– Luke: Sure.

- And I knew I wanted to have something like this, something that I can build with the soil.

I can grow food for local community, you know, I can teach people the connection between your plate and nature, you know.

Three days was actually the first house we sought, and then we were coming up to the driveway.

My heart told me, "This is the place."

My wife took a little longer.

- I took a little longer; I confess.

[laughing] - You couldn't even see the ground because the weeds-- - Yeah, inside the white fence here, the weeds were taller than we were.

This whole area was covered with weeds.

- That's incredible.

- So nothing existed here five years ago.

- That's a lot of progress in a short amount of time.

– Kris: Yeah.

- You name the invasive weed.

[laughing] - We still probably have it.

- Yeah, exactly.

It could be a case study.

I wanna stop you for one second.

- Okay.

- What's the difference between soil and dirt?

- Oh, my God, yes.

We depend on soil.

You know, soil makes your water better, makes the plants grow better.

It's life.

– Kris: And it's a living thing.

– Polly: It's full of life.

We have microorganisms living here, you know.

Those microorganisms, all those insects, they are the farmers.

Well, because they are responsible for the food to grow and the compost to biodegrade eventually and become soil.

You know, so it's a whole difference between dirt and soil.

Soil has life.

- I'd love to walk through it.

Shall we?

– Polly: Yes, please.

We don't have a fancy gate.

- No fancy gate; that's cool.

[Polly laughing] - Just like this.

– Luke: What are we looking at?

- So over here, we have peppers, all kinds of peppers.

And then we have some herbs, cantaloupe, watermelon, yellow squash, zucchini.

Then we have our tomato patch over here.

There we have kohlrabi.

– Luke: How much of the food that you make is indicative of your background in Brazil and Peru and now coming to Wisconsin?

- In Brazil, we do use a lot of herbs.

You know, like cilantro and parsley.

Without herbs, it wouldn't be what it is, honestly.

That's kinda like the soul of the food.

– Luke: Yeah.

- You know, garlic and herbs.

- And it lifts everything up around it.

- It does.

People can, like when I'm cooking, I can see their faces, you know.

I'm putting all those herbs in.

They're like, "Oh, but don't you think that's a lot?"

And I'm like, "Just, just relax."

- Go sit down.

[Polly laughing] - And then, but when they get to taste, you know what I mean?

And you actually ended up using less salt and less of, you know, those processed things because the beauty of those life ingredients.

- Yeah, it's intricate.

- The flavor's so special.

- My mom, she is a great cook.

So I always try to never forget about my roots.

You know, I always, like my rice is definitely her rice.

- Yes.

- Absolutely.

Obviously I put in some of the French technique that I had the privilege to learn, but it's still the same way that she did it.

So yes, I do keep that alive.

I don't wanna forget about my roots at all.

- Of course not.

- And with this accent, how can I?

[all laughing] - Polly, Kris, thank you so much for having us on your farm today.

It's a story of hope, and I am so honored to be here, to see this, to share in the energy and the love and the passion that you're cultivating right here, and the community.

I can't wait for you to come to Viroqua and come hang out.

I think you're gonna love it.

Maybe we should make a paella.

– Polly: Oh, my God, I love paella.

– Luke: I have huge paella pans and we could light a fire.

– Polly: That would be awesome.

[gentle acoustic music] So right now, I'm going to Luke's house in Viroqua, Viroqua.

[laughs] And we are going to cook together a delicious paella.

And I'm so in love with this place, this is amazing.

My first time here.

And I can't even describe.

The fauna here is amazing.

- Hey, how's it going, Polly?

- Hi!

Better now.

- Yeah, you found us.

- I did!

- Welcome.

Thanks for coming out.

- Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited.

- Of course.

Look at this; do you think this is gonna work?

- Oh, my goodness, this is beautiful.

- That's great.

- Yeah.

Look at that.

- I know.

- Wow.

I brought some things from the farm.

- What do you got?

- Let me see.

- This is like Christmas, the big reveal.

- So I just brought some dried mushrooms.

- Dried mushrooms.

- That's obviously not from the farm.

- Okay.

But I like it.

- Some herbs, parsley.

- Beautiful.

- And cilantro.

- Yeah.

Ooh, that smells really, really good.

- And I brought some beautiful, colorful peppers.

Look at this.

- Nice.

Gorgeous.

- Hand-picked one day before I came here.

- Really?

[Polly laughing] - And some tomatoes.

- Some tomatoes, oh, my gosh.

- Oh, and the garlic, obvious.

- You brought your Brazilian garlic, I hope?

- Yes.

- So I kind of thought today we would use this beautiful weather.

- It is beautiful.

- You know, the situation being behind my house here to put together some paella.

- Mmm.

- If you wanna start, like we could start dicing... - Absolutely.

- ...the onions and slicing the garlic and we'll get the peppers broken up, and I in the meantime, am gonna put the paella pan over the fire here.

– Polly: Sounds great.

- When your mom made paella, did she use a pan this big?

- The house that I grew up, we had like a outside stove kind of similar, but made out of clay and stones.

So that's how she cooked her beans and her rice.

So everything kind of have like that smokey flavor.

- Yeah.

- Oh God, that's why I want one at the farm.

- Yeah, I bet, I bet.

And so kind of part of what we were thinking today with this is we're gonna make a few adaptations.

I have some Wisconsin ingredients.

You brought some of the ingredients from your farm that are, you know, relative to Brazil.

We obviously want to be respectful of the tradition around paella and the cultures that, you know, brought that to us.

But at the same time, we have room to adapt and shift and move.

- Absolutely, yeah.

- So I've got some, actually I've got some beer brats over here.

I've got some Wisconsin Spanish chorizo, a Calabrian three-way, like three styles of Calabrian chili in there.

Can you talk to us, Polly, about what paella is?

What are we making today?

- So paella, and you please correct me if I'm wrong, is a Spanish dish, but actually Spanish people kind of fight a little bit with Valencia people because it's between those two, right?

But it's a rice dish and it's also a very family dish where everybody shares and it brings a lot of different meat together.

And back in history, people who used to work for the rich, they used to take the remains and make at their house.

Kind of similar what happened in Brazil.

- Mm-hmm.

- So that's what is paella for me.

It's just a rice dish with some animal, you know, products on it and just delish.

I love rice.

- Yeah.

- So whatever with rice for me is great.

So, but for me, cooking just, it makes me feel more human, more connected to earth.

- Sure.

- And grounded.

- Right.

Oh, that's amazing.

And how does the perspective of being a farmer now, you know, kind of marry with those feelings?

- Oh, I honestly, I love growing my own ingredients for so many reasons.

For taste, environment purposes.

- Yep.

- But it's actually my heart.

- Sure.

- It's right there.

- Yeah.

- Dirt with every seed and, yeah.

Being a farmer, it was a gift from the universe later in life.

- All right, do you wanna put a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of that paella pan?

- Absolutely.

- All right, chef, let's start... - Adding the ingredients?

- Yeah, let's start by, I'm gonna actually, I have these beer sausages.

- You wanna start the sausage first and then the?

- Yep.

- Okay.

- And then we'll sweat everything else down with it.

[food sizzling] - Polly: Oh, my God.

– Luke: I know, right?

It already smells great.

That smells delicious.

– Polly: Oh, my God.

– Luke: So this is some chorizo.

This is a dried chorizo, not a fresh chorizo.

- But it has color.

- Mm-hmm.

- It has color.

- And flavor.

- And flavor, but it's a cured chorizo.

And I wanna put this in also so it sweats with the vegetables, adds a little bit of a different texture.

I'm gonna open up now some of the underground meats, Spanish chorizo.

I'm gonna come in with this stuff if you don't mind.

- Oh, please.

- Here we go.

So we've got this pork we're adding in now.

- Mmm, now we're gonna have some color here.

- Right?

- With all those chorizo.

- Now, do you know the technique for adding the rice?

- You tell me.

- I've always been told.

- Okay.

- That whenever we're adding the rice, you have to do it in the symbol of the cross.

- Oh, really?

- Because that's like a Spanish, Portuguese thing, right?

Like it's very, very divine, and you're like bringing the divinity into the actual dish.

I don't know if that's how you roll.

That's not, you know, like... - That's how I'm gonna roll now.

- Exactly.

[laughing] You always put it in, in the sign of the cross.

- Yeah.

- Take no chances, you know?

- I wanna learn.

[both laughing] - All right.

Okay, here we go.

- Cool!

[Luke laughing] I will complete, I will complete.

- Thank you.

- There we go.

- There it is.

- This is cool!

- Right?

- I didn't know about the cross.

- Yeah.

- Love it.

- All right, sister, let's go with that stock.

- All right.

[food sizzling] - Yeah, we're gonna add a little bit of wine.

We'll add a little tomato, that acid, which will help kind of break things down and it'll soften all the flavors.

Okay, so let's add some salt.

- I wish everybody could smell this, right?

- So this is saffron, right?

This is Spanish saffron.

There's a flavor that's associated with saffron that's very, very unique.

And I think it's one that like, if we're going to pay tradition to some of the cultural building blocks of paella - Should be there, yeah.

- Sure, we put beer brats in, we're doing this in Brazilian style with your Brazilian garlic and your beautiful Brazilian perspective.

And then Spanish saffron.

We're gonna go splitsies on this, right?

- Yeah.

- Like you're gonna eat half and I'll eat half?

I'm gonna drop some of this fresh thyme in here.

- You know, thyme is one of my favorite herbs.

- [Luke singing] Give me time We've got most of the building blocks in.

I'm gonna go with a little bit of crushed red pepper flake here.

Just like a handful of it.

And Polly, if you would, let's get a little ros on this.

Now, the awesome part about using wine like this is that actually, we'll cook the alcohol out.

So you'll just have the residual sweetness and a little bit of the acidity.

Actually, one of my favorite parts about cooking paella honestly, is kind of like the guessing game of which ingredients go in when.

We wanna make sure that the ingredients that spend the most time in the pan are not gonna actually overcook.

- Overcook, yes.

- Right?

So a lot of those aromatics, the vegetables, the hard chorizo, the dry-cured, all those things take time to cook, and that's great.

We have time with this.

But the shrimp?

- It's minutes.

- Yeah, the minutes.

And the fresh herbs, we want those to be last-second additions so we can ensure that everything gets done at exactly the right time.

- But we can add the peas.

- We can add the peas, yep.

It just gets more beautiful.

- Yeah, green, red, yellow.

- Oh, there's that crust coming up.

Okay, so we're at the point now, like this is almost done, right?

We know that there's a crust forming on the bottom with the rice.

We can see that the top rice is already like, cooked.

It's al dente right now.

- Al dente.

- But we're close.

So I'm gonna add these beautiful colossal uncooked shrimp.

We're gonna get these in here.

I'm gonna lay 'em right on top.

All right, so we're at the point where these colossal shrimp are cooking up.

I'm gonna go a little bit over the top here.

We're gonna add just a couple more shrimp.

Is that cool?

- Please do.

- Okay, great.

- Love shrimp.

- I know that you're a seafood lover.

– Polly: Yeah, mmm.

There we go.

– Luke: Yep.

And we're gonna let those kind of come up here for a little bit.

All right, and then last but not least, some of those delicious herbs that you brought.

– Polly: Let's put it.

– Luke: Cool.

I feel sometimes like I am combining all of these elements of storytelling into one big, beautiful dish, quite a bit like the paella.

And if there's a metaphor to be had from this program ever, it's that this cultural conglomeration is symbolic of all of us.

We're all in this same pan together.

And we've got different perspectives and stories that flavor it and accent it, like these individual ingredients.

But when you put 'em in there together, we all become one.

We become one big, universal paella.

I can't wait to taste it.

– Polly: Food brings people together.

– Luke: Yeah, totally.

– Polly: I love that.

That's an inspiration.

– Luke: I know!

[Polly laughs] It's why we're doing this.

– Polly: It's beautiful.

– Luke: It is beautiful.

So look at that.

- Oh, my goodness.

- Encrusted.

- Thank you.

- Yep.

- I got the first.

[laughs] There we go.

– Luke: You want a couple more shrimp, Sy?

So Polly, thank you so much for coming out.

Thank you for sharing your beautiful ingredients with us, your story, your and Kris's farm, your time, your energy.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

You have a wonderful, wonderful place.

- Yeah, this is beautiful.

– Polly: Thank you.

- So kind to have you here.

- We're so happy you're here.

- Thank you.

- Shall we?

– Luke: Mm-hmm.

So good.

Mm, that's perfect.

– Polly: Mmm.

– Luke: Brought you by Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

– Polly: Actually, he let him pick him up.

I'm gonna take a picture with you.

- Get it.

- I'm actually horrible at taking pictures.

- Seriously, you got the camera pointed the wrong way.

You gonna get the paella back there?

- How about you do it?

You're better.

- Oh, I'm better?

- Yeah.

The paella.

- Oh, there it is.

– Luke: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- At Organic Valley, our cows make milk with just a few simple ingredients: sun, soil, rain, and grass.

And grass, and grass.

- Yee-haw!

Organic Valley Grassmilk, organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

- 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.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from the Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site, high quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Additional support from the following underwriters.

[groovy music] Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you'll find past episodes and special segments.

[bright music]