5 Healthy Towns Farm to Table Chef Profile: “Chef Em” from the Chelsea Alehouse
Chef Emily van der Waard and Ryan Malone are teaming up to represent the Chelsea Alehouse at the 7th annual Farm to Table Fabulous Feast on August 21.
submitted by Shawn Personke, 5H Farm to Table committee
The 5H Farm to Table Fabulous Feasts bring chefs together from different communities and different restaurants to prepare a multi-course meal using fresh ingredients from local farmers’ markets. The event is a fundraiser for local farmers’ markets, including Manchester’s. This year, the lineup includes chefs from Smokehouse 52, Wesley’s Catering, Silver Maples, the Cedars of Chelsea, Chelsea Alehouse, Friendly Foods Vegan Kitchen, Roaming Goat, and Moveable Feast.
It’s a lucky person who finds themselves in the job they love. One they first discovered when they were just a kid.
Like Emily van der Waard — or Chef Em, as she’s known around Chelsea’s social media circles — top chef at Chelsea Alehouse.
van der Waard comes from a long line of foodies. Her mom worked at the Chelsea Market and did food tastings at the Chelsea Farmers Market when it was located on Park Street, her grandmother ran a catering business in the 1960s, and her dad worked in restaurants.
As did Chef Em.
She spent a few years at Lansing’s iconic Clara’s Lansing Street Station when she was at college. She learned many tips and tools of the trade during her 16 years at the Common Grill with Craig Common. After that, she spent a few years at Robin Hills Farm teaching cooking classes, moving to the Alehouse in 2019 and leading the kitchen in new directions.
van der Waard said she knew early on that cooking was a creative outlet for her and that “designing” food was really “fun and cool.”
So when she had the opportunity to begin developing her own menus, she was pretty excited.
“It’s one thing to be preparing food that was another person’s idea, but to start wrapping your brain around your own creations — I was pretty geeked,” she enthused.
She adds that she loves looking around the kitchen to see what’s available and seeing what she can find seasonally at the Chelsea Farmers Market, remarking, “I love to take something simple and put a spin on it. I also want to make sure that I have something for every palate on the Alehouse menu.”
For the upcoming 5 Healthy Towns Farm to Table Fabulous Feast on August 21, taking place at Robin Hills Farm, Chef Em is prepping a corn johnny cake topped with a succotash. All of the fresh food ingredients are donated by local farmers in the five healthy towns — Chelsea, Dexter, Grass Lake, Stockbridge, and Manchester.
van der Waard said she’s been a part of the event since it began in 2016: “I was part of the Common Grill team for a couple of years. And last year I prepared an appetizer for the Grass Lake dinner.”
She says it’s really cool the way that all the chefs work together to pull off an “on the road” kitchen line, adding, “We all help plate and garnish each of the courses so that it’s a smooth operation.”
Although sometimes it’s not all smooth sailing: “The first year we had a pop-up thunderstorm and the wind came in and blew away all the plates that Zingerman Cornman’s Farm’s chef Alex Young had just set up for his Heirloom Caprese,” she recalled. “We raced over there to help him reset.”
Like many accomplished chefs, Chef Em has a right-hand man, Ryan Malone. They met when they were both cooking at the Common Grill. She says of their partnership, “We have a friendly competition that inspires both of us to come up with some great dishes. He’s a huge support and really creative.”
WHAT: 5 Healthy Towns Farm to Table Fabulous Feast, a multi-course dinner!
WHEN: Sunday, August 21, 2022, 4–6 pm
WHERE: Robin Hills Farm, 20390 M-52, Chelsea, Michigan
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $75. Available online at Eventbrite
MENU: Almost finalized … and ready TBA soon
Online: https://farm2tablechelsea.
For more information about the 5 Healthy Towns Foundation or the five farmers’ markets, visit www.5healthytowns.org.
The chef team for the 7th annual Farm to Table Fabulous Feast on August 21 to benefit the 5 Healthy Towns farmers markets include Friendly Foods Vegan Kitchen’s Keith and Jamie Stiglitz, Britt Keene from Roaming Goat, Phil Tolliver from Smokehouse 52, Travis Ringler from Silver Maples of Chelsea, Todd Brown of Wesley’s Catering, Emily Griswold, Market Manager for the Chelsea Farmers Market, and Patti Kucera, Director of Culinary Services at Silver Maples. Not pictured: Dan Huntsbarger from Moveable Feast, Mark Banks from the Cedars of Dexter, Keegan Rodgers from Lakehouse Bakery. The full menu will be revealed soon.
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