SARAH JANE SANDERS_SMILEY PETE_RONA-23
Farm to fork. Farm to table. Farm to school. Farm to you — it always starts with farm. A recent meal prepared by Lexington food writer Rona Roberts featured 17 ingredients that started on Kentucky farms. Chief among those ingredients was sorghum, produced from four Kentucky producers and included in seven dishes.
Pepared for a Mercer County Arts Council fundraiser, the meal took place at the Nathanial Burrus house, a historic Mercer County country home less than 30 miles from downtown Lexington; the centerpiece, a fall-apart tender lamb shoulder braised for hours in its own savory juices, came from Four Hills Farm, about seven minutes away from the home.
Click each menu item for recipes, resources and to find out just how sorghum was incorporated in the meal in seven different ways.
Sorghum: What is it and how did it show up seven times in a meal?
On the Menu:
Cocktail: “The Sorghum Colonel”
Winter Roast Vegetable Salad with Sorghum Bourbon Vinaigrette
Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries , from Maggie Green’s The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook
Slow-Braised Mercer County Lamb Shoulder with Sweet Potato Garnish and Kentucky Pan Sauce
Kentucky Rich and Spicy Cornbread with Sorghum-Lime Drizzle
Fresh Ginger Gingerbread with Sorghum Bourbon Whipped Half Sour Cream
This Timeless Kentucky Meal utilized products from the following Kentucky producers:
Barr Farms Sorghum, Meade County
Country Rock Sorghum, Woodford County
Elmwood Stock Farm, Scott County
First Fresh Olive Oil, Mason County
Four Hills Farm, Mercer County
Heavenly Homestead, Russell County
JD Country Milk, Logan County
Steve Kay’s Campsie Garlic and Thyme, Fayette County
Oberholtzer Sorghum, Casey County
Paige Prewitt’s Garden Jalapeños, Fayette County
Ruth Hunt Candy, Montgomery County
Jonathan Roberts’s Kubocha Squash, Wayne County
Sav’s Piment, Fayette County
Tallgrass Farm, Mercer County
Townsend Mill Sorghum, Montgomery County
Weisenberger Mill, Woodford County
Woodford Reserve, Woodford County
The following Kentucky Cookbooks were referenced in this meal:
The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook, by Maggie Green
Kentucky Sweets: Bourbon Balls, Spoonbread & Mile High Pie, by Sarah C. Baird
Smoke and Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen, by Chef Edward Lee
Sweet, Sweet Sorghum: Kentucky’s Golden Wonder, by Rona Roberts
Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries, from Maggie Green’s The Kentucky Fresh
Cookbook