The 100-Mile Radius Meal

By Deborah Seeber

With glorious summer upon us we want to be out - in the garden, in the yard, at the shore. What better way to enjoy the season than marrying the fine weather with the bounty it produces. Al fresco dining becomes the order of the day, the table supplied with the fruits of our farmers, dairymen, and shepherds.  A pastoral delight awaits, as lush and delicious as any conceived by painter or composer from centuries past.  So throw Beethoven’s 6th on the sound system and here we go.

Let us follow the lead of Amanda Vizcarra, for she was born to such things. Born into a farming family in Gasport, she recalls idyllic childhood days spent rambling through orchards and fields, to return to a table laden with fresh vegetables, baked goods, and fruit. A fifth generation member of the Becker farming family, she came to realize that there is a sensibility - culinary and otherwise - that underscores the goodness of farm life. After high school, she went off and did the college thing, majoring in business, but was drawn back to the farm and the food. She returned home and attended the NCCC culinary program, and then took her place among family members, who were already transforming the working farm. The results: an antidote to an increasingly sterile and prefab American take on food consumption. Becker Farms has become a popular agritourism destination spot, with Amanda’s specialty, the 100 Mile Radius Dinner, playing a starring role.

Simple in concept, the 100 Mile is a multicourse meal comprised completely of ingredients produced on small farms within a hundred miles of the Becker Farm. What is not produced there – cheeses and other dairy products, beef, pork and poultry, maple syrup, and honey - is outsourced to neighboring farms. From these, Amanda constructs beautiful meals, presented once or twice a month, beginning in late spring and running through harvest time. When the weather cooperates, they are served al fresco in the courtyard; in inclement weather, or as the chill of autumn encroaches, the large, old barn provides a cozy setting.

Although Amanda is the dynamic force behind these dinners, she did have a sizable leg up in the presence of her parents, Oscar Vizcarra and Melinda Becker Vizcarra. Both hold horticultural degrees from Cornell University, and Amanda describes Oscar as “the master mind and driving force” behind the family enterprise. He and Melinda saw tremendous opportunity to expand and diversify. They put in root stock and created Vizcarra Vineyards. Now they have added a line of beers - a cooperative venture with Flying Bison. Also, there are value added products - jams and preserves, as well as baked goods, with spunky octogenarian, Ruth Jerge Hall, who has been with the Becker family for twenty-five years, presiding over the oven, turning out pies, cookies, and such.

Melinda also saw a need to bring public awareness into the mix. As Americans became more and more removed from the food source, small farms were in danger of devolving into curiosities. By opening the farm to the public for harvest festivals and events - something that evolved out of the orchard’s U Pick business - and by instituting a program of tours targeted at school children, she has been able to drive home the relevance of the small farm.

In an almost Zen, very holistic approach, Oscar and Melinda and their children, including Amanda’s brothers, have created a microcosm where weddings and parties might take place, school children can learn where their food comes from and enjoy the petting zoo, and folks can kick back to hear a live band while drinking a cold one or a glass of wine. And then there are those dinners, Amanda’s “baby.”

Three years ago, she read an article on a West Coast take on the local food movement, with culinary overtones, and had a watershed moment. She realized this could be perfect for Western New York.  Living on a farm, she was well acquainted with the variety of produce available from late spring through the fall, and as a farmer, she could plant according to spec, vis a vis her menus. “We’re never out!” she states exuberantly. As a member of a family that has held its place among the farming community for a long time, she is well aware of what her neighbors produce, incorporating the goods of other small farms where needed. One will find cheese from Yancey’s Fancy, poultry from Britt Farms, beef from Snyder Farms, and products from Wolf Maple on her menus, just to name a few. And as head chef, she is able to combine the business acumen gained from college with her creative side.

The meals and dishes Amanda constructs sing of the fields and orchards that grace the border of Lake Ontario, of the Beckers, and now Vizcarras, who have worked them, and of the honest toil and camaraderie of her farming neighbors. The results of their efforts are simply too good to pass up.

Becker Farms will be offering their 100-Mile Radius Dinners at their farm on the following dates; June 24, July 22, August 7, and September 7. For more information please visit beckerfarms.com.

To view our Summer 2010 100-Mile Radius Dinner menu go here.

Deborah Seeber is a freelance writer living in East Aurora, where she expects a bumper crop of fresh vegetables from her plot at the Aurora Community Garden, and from her backyard garden, providing Woodrow and Charles don't partake (the groundhogs in residence in her shed).