Best use of local ingredients: Riddle’s has a corner on the market • by Pat Eby - Photo by Jonathan Swegle
Posted On: 07/01/2006 E-mail This To A Friend!

With his full beard, long ponytail and wide grin, Andy Ayers attracted attention like bees to honey as he walked the Wednesday evening Maplewood Farmers’ Market. His signature red newsboy cap with a St. Louis Cardinals emblem sat solidly on his head. He waved to his farmer friends. A patron of Ayers’ restaurant, Riddle’s Penultimate Café and Wine Bar, stopped him. “Hey, Andy, what are we going to eat on Friday?” Ayers looked around the market. “Cauliflower, for sure. I don’t know what else.”

Ayers strode into the Centennial Farms tent with a sturdy cardboard box under his arm. Farmer Ellen Knoernschild of Augusta was nowhere to be found, so Ayers placed the box on the scale himself. He was filling it with small, tight heads of cream-colored cauliflower when Knoernschild reappeared.

“Ellen, I’ll take it all if you don’t mind selling out,” said Ayers.

“No, I don’t mind,” Knoernschild said. She produced a less-than-perfectly formed head from under the table. “I’ll throw this one in – no charge. How are you going to fix that cauliflower?”

“Parboil it, then heat it back up in butter, maybe add green onion and some bacon,” Ayers said. “By the way ? black raspberries. Whenever, OK? I’ve got my food mill ready to go.”

No wonder Riddle’s wins the readers’ choice poll for favorite use of local ingredients so often. Ayers prefers the serendipity of shopping the markets to the practice of “grow-to-order” arrangements some chefs make with farmers. “We are the beneficiaries of centuries of agricultural tradition,” he said. “Farmers know what to grow. It’s my job to make tasty preparations.”

Ayers’ eclectic tastes keep his kitchen staff creatively challenged when Ayers brings back something unexpected from the markets. The day before we met, he had traveled to Scharf Family Farm to buy broccoli and zucchini. He was surprised by some fine rhubarb. “We have fresh rhubarb pie on the menu tonight,” he said. And the zucchini? The broccoli? Here’s how Ayers wrote the menu description: “Fresh Homegrown Zucchini with Prosciutto, Romano & Oregano – Fresh Homegrown Broccoli – both from the Scharf Family Farm on Illinois 163, four miles north of Millstadt.”

Farmers appreciate the validation ? and the increased business ? that comes with inclusion on Riddle’s menu. “Because of Andy, we got the Noonday Club, Adam’s Mark and American Place,” said Connie Scharenborg from ShowMe Fresh Farms in Cape Girardeau.

Ayers writes a new menu each day. “Isn’t modern technology amazing?” he asked. “Sure, it takes time, but I [can] communicate with every customer where the food comes from, how we prepare it. It’s personal. People want personal.”

So, how did Ayers come to see the light of buying local? His wife Paula pointed the way. Before Riddle’s was even a pipedream, the Ayers family operated a pizzeria on Natural Bridge Road. Ayers bought homegrown tomatoes from nearby Theis Farm and Greenhouses for the family, then ordered tomatoes from Produce Row delivered to the pizzeria. “Don’t you think our customers would prefer those great tomatoes?” his wife asked. Thus began Ayers’ tradition of buying local, and it continues today.

“Andy goes out of his way to find unique things for his restaurants,” said Ken Muno of Goatsbeard Farm in Harrisburg, Mo. “In fact, he’s picking up a big order of goat cheese tonight.” Ayers arrived at the Goatsbeard stand, picked up the tubs of cheese and collected a bill from Muno. As we walked to his car, Ayers said, “Farming is a capital-shy business. Farmers appreciate prompt payment. If I don’t pay cash, I put a check in the mail on Monday.”

David Hillebrand of Prairie Grass Farm said, “He’s an unusual character who takes the unusual stuff, like our apple sausage and ground lamb, rather than the regular stuff.” Ayers’ menu description of the farm’s sausage nearly sings: “Our friends Dave and Barb Hillebrand raise lamb gently at their Prairie Grass Farm on Sunbeam Road in New Florence, Mo. They came up with this sausage preparation using apples and dried cherries that is just delicious. We grill a link to order, serve on a bed of sweet caramelized onion and add a sauce we made with fresh mint leaves from Bob Lober’s farm in Moscow Mills.”

Ayers may be riding the crest of the buy-local trend, but he is not one to follow the latest fads. He believes in using the freshest ingredients of the best quality, bought direct from regional farmers. “Just think,” he mused, “wouldn’t it be great if these farmers sold out every week?” With an advocate like Ayers creating luscious food, locally purchased, it could happen.

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