I'm published!

Check it out, http://uptownclt.com/2010/06/eat-on-the-street-harvest-moon/

Eat on the Street – Harvest Moon Grille

CURRENT ISSUE — BY EMILY JONES ON JUNE 28, 2010 AT 3:40 PM

I walk briskly past Johnson & Wales University. The enticing aromas help to quicken my pace. The bright-orange boxy cart catches my eye as I pass fellow students walking to class. As I stand in line I notice small signs propped against the cart promising fresh ingredients. My appetite grows. Once I order, I wait only briefly before a warm white box is handed to me, then I take a seat at a small table. Other hungry customers quickly take my place, eager to get a taste for themselves. As the wind steals my napkins, I take my first bite and force myself not to inhale my lunch from Harvest Moon Grille, Charlotte’s first artisan food cart.
Grateful Growers Farm, which owns and operates Harvest Moon, is famous for humanely raising its own pigs and for having some of the best pork in the universe, so I was surprised when Cassie Parsons, one of the farm’s founders and head chef of The Harvest Moon Grille, steered me away from a pork dish and toward a steak and mushroom quesadilla.

“It’s the best item on the menu today,” she encouraged.

The menu of the moment doesn’t always match the menu on the website due to constant changes and what looks best at the farmers markets that particular week or day.
It’s hard enough to find someone who actually looks at you when you order your food, let alone takes the time to shake your hand and describe where your food came from, so I was already falling in love with this cart. When she’s not working the grill inside the cart, Parsons is out front with a warm smile, greeting every customer that comes to the window. So, while a young chef named Adam manned the grill, Cassie explained where and how my food had been grown. She told me that culinary students who work for her visit local farmers markets, help pick out the food, and participate in deciding what they’re going to make that week.

“One of the best parts of the cart is the connection it creates for students, who are able to experience the simple joy of finding good products and sharing them with the community through our cart,” Parsons said.

A sticker on the bumper of the truck that pulls the cart reads, “No farm, no food.” It was just a simple bumper sticker, but loaded with implications. Like any other business, the cart has to make money by selling a product; this cart offers more than a simple meal. Everything has been grown or sourced with care, and then cooked with the same respect. According to Parsons, the animals are never pumped with drugs or made to eat things unnatural to them. Vegetables and other produce used in the Grille’s menu are kept far away from chemicals or pesticides while being grown. The food you get from the cart essentially comes straight from the earth to your plate, or, as Parsons puts it, “No middle man necessary.”

My steak and mushroom quesadilla was handed to me in a small white box. The powerful aroma jabbed me in the face as I opened the box, with a woodsy scent from the mushrooms perfuming the seasoned steak. The melted cheese enrobed what Parsons described as, “top round that has been brined for three days, then braised slowly.” Along with the mushrooms and caramelized onions, the ingredients blended together between two golden-brown tortilla shells – an olfactory bomb that tasted as good as it smelled.

Is this food trying to make a statement?
“Just because we work in the middle of the city doesn’t mean farm-fresh food should be out of reach,” Parsons said.
Over coffee it became evident that Cassie Parsons is the type of person who gives you a genuine smile and looks into your eyes when she talks. She is confident, but not boastful, and is comfortable in her own skin. She speaks with passion and conviction and clearly loves her job. But this wasn’t always the case. She moved to Charlotte 14 years ago and worked as a chef at a high-end steak restaurant, but, she soon realized she wasn’t satisfied with the quality of food it was serving. It didn’t take long for her to see how rising food costs caused compromises in quality at most restaurants. She decided she didn’t want to be a part of this cycle anymore so she started her own organic garden to grow produce she could sell to local chefs. While many of her friends thought it was a beautiful idea, the chefs didn’t bite. Organic products weren’t yet mainstream, and the extra cost couldn’t be justified.
She decided she had to keep fighting, especially because of her concern about the relentless loss of farmland. According to Parsons, in the past 19 years more than half of North Carolina’s farmland, 9 million acres, has been paved over. The idea of the Grateful Growers Farm had been gestating in the back of Parson’s mind for a number of years.

“All I wanted to do was make really great food, eat well, and provide for my friends.”

She grabbed hold of that simple concept and ran with it. After a lot of hard work she eventually got a grant from an organization that seemed thrilled by her innovativeness. Parsons had cleared the first obstacle, and with her partner, Natalie Veres, was able to start Grateful Growers. And thus, the 10-acre farm they now enjoy, in Lincoln County, was born in December 2004.
In addition to the hogs they’re famous for, they also raise close to 500 ducks a year, as well as a handful of chickens and turkeys for personal use. They also grow about 40 pounds of shiitake mushrooms annually. In addition to Peres and Parsons, the staff on the farm includes one part-time employee helping with farm work, a part-time bookkeeper, a part-time sales associate, and several volunteers who staff the tables at farmers markets.

After a few years of selling their farm-raised pork, chicken and other products to chefs and farmers market patrons, they decided, during the summer of 2009, to create The Harvest Moon Grille. From Monday through Thursday, just a walk away from anywhere in uptown, they cook and serve organic food, sourced from more than a dozen farms and local businesses. Parsons is delighted with the response, especially because The Harvest Moon Grille runs well with only one full-time and four part-time employees. She told me, “This little cart has created a true connection between the growers, the guests who get to enjoy their products, and the employees.”

In so doing, The Harvest Moon Grille has unintentionally become a symbol of possibility in Charlotte’s streets, stirring up the tastebuds, and perhaps the imaginations, of everyday consumers, offering farm-fresh meals in a city environment. As our cities grow ever taller, businesses such as The Harvest Moon Grille remind us that we all started with the soil. “No farm, no food.” Indeed.

~ Emily Jones