By Elizabeth Keyser

J. Porter's at the Marriott Trumbull now sources eighty-five percent of their food from local farms under the direction of Executive Chef Chris Molyneux.

If you need proof that the local food movement is here to stay, check into a Marriott.  Last year, the international hotel chain introduced a sustainable seafood program in its restaurants, and now a core group has instituted farm-to-table menus.  J. Porter’s, the restaurant  in the Trumbull Marriott, is the latest.

Executive Chef Chris Molyneux is quietly rolling out his farm-to-table menu. Greyledge Farm delivers their grass-fed and hormone-free beef, free-range chickens, and pastured pork.   Connecticut Farm Fresh Express delivers farm fresh produce and artisan products from across the state.  Seafood comes from Stonington.

Institutional  frozen products are out. Whole salmons, chickens and bags of fresh vegetables from the farm are in. “It’s a little more work,” Molyneux says, “but it’s a great payoff. The quality is far better.”  Bones are used to make sauces, stocks and demi-glaces. Hamburgers are formed in the kitchen. The chefs use the in-house smoker to make the salmon, pulled pork and the beef in the prime-rib sandwich.

Preparing food from scratch isn’t new to Molyneux. One of his first cooking jobs was at Captain’s Galley in West Haven. “I’d peel 100 pounds of shrimp,” he says, “Onions rings? I’d prep 200 pounds of onions.” In J. Porters kitchen, the cooking staff has had to adjust. Picking lobster meat from the shells is the job no one wants.  But if he hears a grumble, Molyneux has a ready reply, “I’m standing right here next to you, man.”

Customers have responded with enthusiasm, interest, and some protests when a favorite, like Chilean Sea Bass, has been removed from the menu.  J. Porters servers and chefs help educate the guests about the changes. “When we tell people that Chilean Sea Bass is endangered, they are shocked.  They say they didn’t know.”

Wild salmon from Scotland has replaced farmed salmon on the menu and is a reflection of Marriott's move to a sustainable seafood program begun in 2010 with CleanFish.

Chef Molyneux says that the veggie burger is a surprise bestseller. This generous burger is a mix of beets, brown rice and black beans.

One surprise on the new menu is the popularity of the veggie burger. “We sell out almost every night,” says Molyneux. The burger is a hearty mix of beets, brown rice and black beans, served on a whole wheat bun.  “It’s like a three-hour process to make it,” says executive sous chef Michael Dunton.

Salmon is another favorite. The Loch Duart salmon comes from Scotland where it is farmed sustainably. “I definitely saw a huge difference in the taste of the Loch Duart than regular farmed salmon,” says Molyneux. The salmon arrives whole.  “We see the quality,” he says.  At a recent lunch, the salmon was simply roasted, and accompanied by ramps and turnip greens.

Look for seasonal New England seafood on the menu like this soft-shell crab served on a bed of local arugula.

Molyneux knows fish. “I’m a seafood guy,” he says. Growing up in West Haven, the grandson and nephew of commercial fishermen, he was on a boat at 2 months old. As a young man, he worked as a commercial fisherman, spending 9 days on the seas at a clip. He still holds a captain’s license.

He graduated from Johnson & Wales culinary school and cooked at a farm-to-table restaurant in Mt. Snow, Vermont, before joining Marriott four years ago.

When he talks to guests about the source of J. Porter’s seafood, sometimes they’re surprised that it comes from Long Island Sound. “We’ve gotten away, as a society, from understanding where our food comes from,” he says, “our industry relies on the waters around us.”

Next January, J. Porter’s will be remodeled to make the décor as fresh as the food. It will join four other Marriott restaurants in West Palm Beach, Dallas, Cleveland, and Columbus, Ohio that have rebranded as farm-to-table restaurants. Molyneux is still discovering new sources for products, and has many plans. “We’re going to introduce a bar menu – steak tips, flat irons, maybe individual short ribs.” Already on tap at the bar is Ten Penny Ale, a micro brew from Olde Burnside Brewing Company in Hartford.

Molyneux says that he has relied on the staff (“we have a great team”) to help “translate the vision to the customers.”  The revelatory nature of farm fresh food is clear when Bonnie Caravaglia, the assistant general manager, talks.

“Remember those carrots?” she says, with a tone of amazed appreciation. What did they taste like? “They had a natural sweetness. They were meaty. They were fresh. They tasted like a real carrot.”

Time magazine ran and excellent article on August 21 entitiled “Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food” by Bryan Walsh. Early in the article he point out “And perhaps worst of all, our food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous. A series of recalls involving contaminated foods this year — including an outbreak of salmonella from tainted peanuts that killed at least eight people and sickened 600 — has consumers rightly worried about the safety of their meals.” I encourage you to read the entire article but I’m going to focus on food safety for now.

As we head into Labor Day and the final summer weeks of outdoor grilling, I feel compelled to share a very sobering number with you: “an astonishing 1,675,600 plus pounds of beef and ground meat were recalled since June 8, 2009″ for possible salmonella and E-coli contamination according to US Food Safety. Some was distributed to Connecticut and could have been further processed into other products by the stores.

If you have some ground meat in your freezer that you bought at a local grocer, I recommend you follow US Food Safety’s advice to throw it out just to be safe. My motto is “when in doubt, throw it out” because E-coli can be deadly.

You have options for buying local meat! Here are quite a few farmers’ markets that have local meat vendors that do not use hormones, steroids or antibiotics and raise their cattle at least partially on pasture:

Fairfield Farmer’s Market at the Brick Walk on Saturdays from 9-12 counts Eagle Wood Farms as a vendor. You can call or email ahead to place a special order for pick up at the market. Call 860-379-5978 and ask for one of the owners, Bryan Woods or Dave Finn, or email them using their web form. My favorite so far is their baby back ribs.

You can also find Eagle Wood at:

• Georgetown Farmers’ Market on Sundays from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
• Monroe Farmer’s Market on Fridays from 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Please visit the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s Buying Guide for farmer’s market locations and other information.

Westport Farmer’s Market at Imperial Avenue on Thursdays from 10-2 features Ox Hollow Farm, which just merged with Greyledge Farm and now bears their label. Contact them to place a special order you can pick up at the market. E-mail Tammie at tammie@oxhollowfarm.com
or call her at 203.263.6807 or 860.354.3315. The last steak we got from her was like butter.

Ox Hollow Farm is also a vendor at these farmers’ markets:

• Darien on Wednesdays from 11-6
• Ridgefield on Fridays from 3-6 pm
• New Canaan on Saturdays 10-2
• Branchville sells their burgers on Saturdays from 10-3, to go or hot off the grill.

Please visit the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s Buying Guide for farmer’s market locations and other information.

Rowayton Farmers’ Market at Pinkney Park on Fridays from 12-5 (new hours) offers Kinderhook Farm’s pasture-raised, grass-fed beef. This Hudson Valley, NY farm boasts “several hundred acres of rolling hay meadows and pastures allow us to raise our beef cattle on a 100% grass and legume diet that includes no grain, antibiotics, growth hormone, or animal by-products.” I haven’t tried this farm’s meat yet, but plan to soon.

What’s your favorite source for local meat?