Blue Bird Bistro – Kansas City, Kansas by Diane

Blue Bird Bistro is a former café turned bistro whose motto is “organic, all natural, sustainable local.” The restaurant works to build relationships with the farmers that supply their organic produce and all natural, hormone free, antibiotic-free, humanely raised meats.

Blue Bird is “the” restaurant in Kansas City when it comes to local, sustainable food, so it was only fitting that we had our Kansas City lunch there. We used this lunch as an opportunity to bring together sustainable farmers and ranchers, as well as representatives from the sustainable world in and around Kansas City. Just to give you a feel for the groups represented, I’m going to list them below.

Our event was hosted by Lisa Markeley, an amazing woman who’s a passionate foodie and is involved with the Kansas City Food Circle, KC 100 Mile Diet Team, and is a registered dietician. She not only hosted us at the restaurant, she and her husband Jim escorted us around for the entire day – and helped make our stay in Kansas City and Lawrence memorable.

Our lunch consisted of mixed greens, heirloom tomato pie (some with sustainable bacon), local potatoes, and berry pie for dessert. (I have a menu somewhere but can’t seem to find it – I’ll post up the proper names for the dishes when I get it off the bus.) Needless to say, all the food was delicious.

Lisa our host spoke, as did myself and Simran Sethi, the Lacy C Haynes Visiting Professional Chair at the University of Kansas and host of “The Green” on the Sundance Channel. Simran actually joined us the next day on the bus for our trip to Minneapolis, where she was a judge in the pie contest at the Mill City Farmers Market.

For me, the highlight of the meal was when everyone went around the room and introduced themselves – it was inspiring to hear about all the good work people are doing and the groups they’re working with. (And there had to have been 60-75 people at the event.) Okay, I had another highlight too – Terry and Linda Spence showed up and sat next to me – I worked with Terry for years on industrial agriculture issues with a sister program to Sustainable Table. He and his wife Linda came all the way across Missouri to visit for a couple hours – now that’s what I call a friend!

Just to give you a feel for who was there, we had people (farmers, volunteers, representatives) from:

Local Burger (the local sustainable restaurant in Lawrence, KS)
Kansas City Food Circle
KC 100 Mile Diet
K-State Extension
KC Center for Urban Agriculture
Paradise Locker Meats
Green Dirt Farm
J-14 Farm
Karbaumer Farm
Campo Lindo Farms
Bad Seed Farm
Family Farms for the Future
Well’s Family Farms
M and J Ranch
UCM in Warrensburg
Shatto Dairy Farm
Missouri University Extension
Eatlocalkc.com blog
Menorah Legacy Foundation
KC Healthy Kids
39th Street Market Manager
PresentMagazine.com
Hen House Dietician
Justus Drugstore restaurant
Real Food for Schools
Green Acres Natural Market
Eden Alley Restaurant
Food Not Lawns
Faces of Food
Coming Home to Eat
KKFI Community Radio
Slow Food KC
Bistro Kids – Farm 2 Cafeteria
KC Buy Fresh Buy Local Campaign
KC Organics Market
Brookside Farmers Market

This is an example of the sustainable food community in Kansas City – who knows how many more groups there are, but how fantastic that all these people got together to share a meal and spend some time with each other. My hope is that some connections were made at the meal so more groups will be able to work together to help bring healthy food to everyone.

Article Tag(s):

If you are interested in commenting on this blog, please go to our forum...