Utah Artisan Food Finds
Northern Utah food producers showed off a little last week at a Taste of Northern Utah dinner at the historic Holmgren Farm in Tremonton.
It was part of an effort nu Utah tourism groups to put Utah on the culinary map. I wrote about the event in my Standard-Examiner story.
“People today want to know where their food comes from, and people who travel want to know about the local food,” said Emily Moench, public relations manager for the Utah Office of Tourism. Scott Evans, owner of the award-winning Salt Lake City restaurant Pago, his executive chef Phelix Gardner and other staff prepared the meal that highlighted small farms and artisan products in Box Elder and Cache counties.
Shown here are the savory macarons with Holmgren Farms apricot jam and Frog Bench Farms oregano.
You could also sample grilled M & M Farms summer squash with Winder Dairy ricotta; smoked Road Creek Ranch trout, Parker Farms heirloom tomatoes.
I sipped on a housemade root beer from Beehive Brewery in Logan. It’s sweet flavor is similar to A&W, as opposed to the licorice-laden Ruby River and “bark” flavor of Barq’s.
Artisan bread was provided by Crumb Brothers of Logan, and spread with Butcher’s Bunches jams, also made in Logan. I sat by owner Liz Butcher, and she told me her jams are mainly the natural fruit, and most of them don’t contain any added sugar. They won accolades at the Fancy Food Show, and are now being shipped all over the world.
The first course was a carrot tasting, showing just how many ways can you prepare a carrot —raw, in an olive oil confit, pickled, carrot chips and a carrot mascarpone. The carrots came from Keep it Real Vegetables.
The second course was a Compressed Watermelon Salad, where the cucumbers and watermelon are vacuum-sealed in order to remove the liquid and change the texture. Evan’s own Pago Farms provided the watermelon. The edible flowers made it look ALMOST too good to eat!
There was a Tomato and Farro salad, sort of 
an extra little surprise, as it wasn’t listed on the menu. I loved the flavors.
The third course was a carnivore’s dream of mixed grill of Sugarhouse fresh pork sausage, hay-smoked Morgan Valley lamb ribs, and Holmgren Farm bottom round.
Dessert? Since Box Elder is peach country, this fruit from Pettingill’s farm played the starring role in a cobbler with Gelarti vanilla gelato and Dallas’s apricot vinegar caramel. The cobblers were served in trendy individual jars.
Beehive/Moab Brewery of Logan provided root beer and beers, and winemaker Evan Lewandowski provided wines.
The Cache Valley Visitors Bureau offers a list of food companies that can be visited on a self-guided Food Maker’s tour, found at https://www.explorelogan.com/food-tour.html. The list includes Crumb Brothers Artisan Bread, Cox Honeyland, Beehive Grill, Rockhill Creamery, Caffe Ibis, Weeks Berries of Paradise, Aggie Ice Cream and True Blue Aggie Cheese made on the Utah State University Campus, and Bluebird Candy Company.
I can add a couple of other names to the list: Casper’s Ice Cream in Richmond, where you can get great deals on Fat Boy ice cream bars; and the Gossner Cheese factory, where you can buy Swiss and cheddar cheese, as well as cheese curds (“squeaky cheese” as we called them back when I was a college student at Utah State University).
At the end of the night, I continued the “local” theme by staying overnight at the Sandman Motel in Tremonton. (I was traveling on to St. Anthony, Idaho the next day.) It’s old-fashioned, but clean and comfortable. And it was only $53. My only two concerns were no chain on the door (only a deadbolt) and no light switch in the bathroom. It felt a little strange showering in the dark. But where else can you sing yourself to sleep to the tune of “Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream?”