Culinary Match.com

 Farmers, ranchers and chefs will have kind of a unique opportunity to discuss ways to get together and buy or sell, depending on which side of the equation they’re on fresh, local agriculture to local foodservice venues at the 2010 Wood River Valley Farmer-Chef Collaborative.  The interactive event is scheduled for April 21 in Sun Valley and is being called “speed dating” because it matches buyers and sellers. In other words, it  facilitates one-on-one discussions to match buyer needs with available local products. The Idaho State Department Agriculture is putting it on and I asked IDA’s Kim Peterson if this could be thought of as a culinary Match.com: “Sure, that would be one way to look at it.  That’s what we’re doing, we’re making matches and it gets a lot of chuckles and the chefs really like to rotate around.”  The event provides great opportunities for growers to connect with restaurants from a wide variety of dining facilities, from high-end establishments to family-style diners with great quality, service and appeal to institututional settings like hospitals.