Meet Pete Grubbe of Middlebury Farms

When I rebranded Duke’s Alehouse and Kitchen 12 years ago to a farm to table gastropub, the local food movement had yet to gather the momentum it has today. Most of the local food we purchased came from shopping directly at farmers markets, but the farmers didn’t always have the quantities we were looking for. So when I’d ask a farmer like Sue, from Natural Farmstand, where I could get more she would happily direct me to someone else that could provide the quantities of produce we needed for the restaurant.

Since then, times have changed. As the local food movement and focus on sustainability has grown, so too have the local and sustainable food options. While we still work with Sue (you may know her by her chioggia beets in our beet salad), we have more than 20 different purveyors, most of them local and sustainable.

We choose which products we get from each farmer based on many factors, but sustainability is by for the most important when selecting a purveyor. Many of our farmers practice Organic farming, but only a handful are certified. This certification, as one would hope, is a lot of hard work. One of our Certified Organic produce farmers has this certification, Middlebury Farms.

Middlebury Farms is run by Pete Grubbe. Pete has been growing Organic produce for Duke’s Alehouse and Kitchen since 2012. I first met Pete and his family as customers on our patio. We chatted a bit about their farm and the things they grew and after a sampling of their amazing produce, I was hooked.

Pete has become not only a friend, but our go-to farmer for many of our products. We also have a great time every spring putting compost in Duke’s Garden and working together to get Duke’s Garden ready for planting.

The relationships Duke’s has established with our farmers goes beyond the ingredients we put on every plate. The ingredients represent friendship, trust, hard work, and respect for the efforts we go through each and every time we serve a dish.

As a tribute to Middlebury Farms and Duke’s celebrating 12 years of working together I came up with a tasty, and vegetarian, fall salad showing off Pete’s tasty produce. The Winter Squash Salad features Ruby Streaks Baby Mustard Greens, Baby Kale, Honeynut Squash, and Acorn Squash all from Middlebury Farms. The baby greens are tossed in a house-made brown butter vinaigrette along with heirloom apples and roasted honeynut squash then topped with pumpkin polenta cakes, fresh goat cheese, pumpkin seeds, an corn squash “doughnut,” and Wisconsin maple syrup.

I hope that everyone gets a chance to try this celebration of the harvest season and local food.