Field Study
Ben Bebenroth is always ready to sample his harvest. “This shit is amazing,” says the conductor hat-wearing, tattooed farmer and chef behind Spice Acres, as he takes a knife from a leather pouch on his belt loop and lops off a stalk of thick purple asparagus.
“This is a variety called purple passion,” he says through a full mouth at the 13-acre Brecksville farm in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It seems a bit unorthodox, but these in-field experiences have a goal: getting visitors comfortable with how they should be eating.
Through his educational nonprofit, Spice Field Kitchen, he makes this point to kids on field trips by letting them try fresh-picked asparagus, even though they may despise the often slimy vegetable. When they taste the crunchy stalk, a lightbulb goes off. “It’s so bright and full of life,” he says. “This is a breakthrough moment for kids.”
Growing up in Strongsville, Bebenroth adopted this from-the-earth lifestyle when his godmother took him through the woods to forage for berries and mushrooms. He worked in fine dining restaurants but didn’t catch the farm-to-table bug until he got a job at Fulton Bar & Grill 15 years ago. One rainy shift at a farmers market with chef Steve Parris was the game changer. Parris was ladling up cups of asparagus soup right across from the farmer selling the asparagus he used to make it.
“I saw the money going right into the hands of those farmers,” says Bebenroth. “The glitz and glamour of fine dining and big hotels — all that just instantly faded away.”
That locally grown focus led him to open Spice Kitchen & Bar, which sources 80 percent of its ingredients from within 150 miles of its location in Cleveland. That’s been easier to do since Spice Acres opened in 2014. It’s the only restaurant-and-catering company-run farm on a national park in the U.S., and everything it grows — fruits, veggies and herbs — go straight into dishes Spice serves or into an artisanal product line, Spice Pantry, that’s getting a new production and event facility in Cleveland in 2020.
Through alfresco yoga and u-picks of asparagus, mushrooms, flowers and raspberries, Spice helps get people closer to the land. But the artful Plated Landscapes dinners provide the most intimate look, with dishes of spring onions and honey mustard cider vinaigrette set on tables over rows of planted onions to remind guests they are eating directly from nature. Cooking demos happen right in the field, too.
“Our Catering Chef Alex Hrvatin is this amazing wilderness guy and dedicated forager,” says Bebenroth of the summer dinners hosted at his farm and other venues. “Oftentimes he will be squatting down with a mortar and pestle making vinaigrette.”
They are styled up with walking crudites on flower-garnished sliced logs and rustic chic vignettes of antique furniture, but that’s all just a fancy way of exposing people to how easy, delicious and healthy it can be to eat fresh.
With some kids at least, Bebenroth sees new eating habits taking root. Watching kids who used to think vegetables were yucky get excited about picking herbs, chopping onions and filling their plates with greens is the end goal for all of this — and he wants to do it more.
“I want to create more goodwill in the community,” Bebenroth says. “I want to spend more of my energy educating more people to make better choices sooner.”
9557 Riverview Road, Brecksville, Spiceacres.com
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