It IS important to know where your food comes from. There have been a host of movies and documentaries on what we modern Homo Sapiens, with all our mental capacity and world dominance, have done to the food we eat; where we get it, what we put in it, how we grow it and how much of it we eat. And, very importantly, what the food we grow does to our land, climate and environment.   (More on this in a later post.)

Uncle George Hillenbrand started Walhill with Stan Waldreman (Wal-Hill) in the early 1960s. Peter Hillenbrand, George’s Great Nephew, took over management of the farm in 2004. It was a crazy idea to start a “farm to fork” restaurant on a farm, in the country, outside of a small town in southeast Indiana, but Pete does believe that keeping things fresh, creative, and LOCAL is a growing trend. It is not a fad. Not everyone will embrace the idea or the added cost of buying fresh and local.  But many will, and the idea and trend is sustainable. It has legs.

In this crazy country, God bless Her, we have a number of odd dichotomies and contradictions in the fundamental and most basic of human needs – food. Good, affordable, happy, healthy FOOD! (What a great word. Don’t you just love the way the word, FOOD, rolls off your tongue and resonates!?) Inexpensive, often unhealthy, and very accessible food has been a major reason why so many of us are overweight or downright fat, including a growing number of the poorest Americans! At least some of the “blame” for this problem is big lobbyists in Washington D.C. who have changed the way we grow, distribute, and price the food we eat, often at the expense of the small, local, sustainable family farm. But even when the system is sometimes rigged again those of us who want to grow and buy fresh, local, sustainably raised food, we can still win our own small battles at home by supporting local businesses, gardeners, and farmer markets. Or maybe by supporting small, sustainable, improbable restaurants like The Restaurant at Walhill Farm. ;-}

50 Muscovy ducklings are being humanly and sustainably pasture raised, right now, on Walhill’s Farm for our Christmas menu.   Be sure to put it on your “need to go” list.