local food: south texas food salon
On a recent August weekend, Loncito Cartwright held a gathering of farmers, producers, chefs, foodies, bloggers, writers, and photographers to his Twin Oaks Ranch near Dinero, TX, and I was fortunate enough to be one of his guests. Dubbed the South Texas Food Salon, now in its second year, Cartwright hoped that by putting like-minded food advocates in the same place for a weekend new relationships could be forged, or existing ones strengthened, and the connections could serve as links in the local food chain.
“I just kinda felt like all these people needed to know each other,” said Cartwright, when asked about why he started doing the food salons. “These people are the heart and soul of promoting local food.”
Twin Oaks Ranch is located in Dinero, TX, and spans some 15,000+ acres – some of that banking Lake Corpus Christi. It’s a beautiful and sprawling property full of mesquite trees, Texas sage and wildlife, and the Cartwright family has been ranching there for generations – as grass farmers, cattle ranchers and now lamb. Part of the property is leased to a big game company that has built an incredible hunting lodge complete with bunkhouse, movie theatre and commercial kitchen.
The mood of the weekend was relaxed as guests gathered at the hunting lodge, starting their days with Tortilla Espanol de Gomez laced with my house-cured bacon. Lunch lasted hours as guests tucked into Hatch green chile pork stew (made with Richardson Farms pork), pickles, pickled beets and squash, and tomato jam from Stephanie Sherzer (Rain Lily Farm) and Elizabeth Wilson (Farmhouse Delivery), venison ham garnished with a Cartwright family mustard recipe, Lamb and Quinoa salad from Rebecca Rather’s (Rather Sweet Bakery) upcoming cookbook, Pastry Queen Parties and cookies from Austin pastry chef Barrie Cullinan. A tour of the property was kick-started by incredible bloody mary’s spiked with the juice from those homemade pickles.
In the evening conversation was easy as friends and like-minded people saddled up to the bar surrounding the kitchen. Among the guests, Larry Butler and Carol Ann Sayle (Boggy Creek Farm), David Cater (Utility Research Garden), Michael Brantley (Austin’s Eastside Showroom), David and Katie (Tecolote Farm), food writer Addie Broyles (Austin-American Statesman), and photographer Penny De Los Santos swapped stories as they munched on pickled cherries, green beans and shallots from Ryan Adams (Nose to Tail at Home).
As red wine was poured, everyone grabbed a plate to fill up with roasted okra; fresh creamer peas studded with house-cured bacon, fresh tarragon & basil; a salad of arugula and pear from Boggy Creek Farm dotted with Pure Luck goat cheese; fresh mesquite-smoked veggies and lamb ribs from Cartwright – smoked over mesquite for hours then finished in a homemade red wine BBQ sauce. Tres Leches cake baked by Rather in honor of Sayle’s (belated) birthday provided the perfect sweet treat to top it all off.
I first met Cartwright during a Central Market cooking class that he was teaching with Chef Lou Lambert (Lambert’s BBQ). The class was entertaining with incredible food being prepared by Lambert and Texas tall-tales being spun by Cartwright, all the while a massive summer thunderstorm was brewing outside. Afterwards, waiting for the storm to subside, I found myself standing outside the store eating chocolate with him, talking about food blogging, food salons and his crazy schedule of promoting his lamb and local food.
“My life is a little complicated right now,” he said. “I spend about two weeks a month on the ranch with Daddy (the patriarch of the family, Lon Cartwright, 86, lives on the ranch too), and the other two I’m traveling between Fredericksburg, San Antonio and Austin getting the lamb processed, delivered to restaurants and working the markets. I drive over 800 miles a month.”
If ever there was a figure that could bring together so many different people interested in cultivating a stronger, more sustainable local food system, it would be Cartwright. Affable, engaging and downright fun to be around, he exudes a schoolboy-like charm that brings you in to his world and makes you want to get on board. Just having a five minute conversation with him can result in the most memorable five minutes you might ever spend.
“I wish there was a hundred of me,” said Cartwright as we watched another thunderstorm flicker and crash in the South Texas distance. “I can feed maybe 500, 1000 families with my lamb. That’s not enough. We need to do better.”
“But what I’d also like to see,” he continued, “is these things [food salons] happening in other states too. I’m the only one doing this that I know of and my hope is that the word will start to spread, that people in other states will start connecting the dots too – inviting all these different folks to get together and spend a weekend eating, talking and spreading the word about local food.”
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