MOSES Organic Farmers Take Over La Crosse Center This Weekend, With Chef Tory Miller Thursday – WIZM 92.3FM 1410AM

One of La Crosse Center’s biggest events is back in town, starting Thursday.

33 MOSES Conference on Organic Agriculture supports the newly renovated Center until Saturday.

TUESDAY: Tom Manely with MOSES will be on La Crosse Talk PM, starting at 5:07 p.m. Tune into the WIZM app, 92.3 FM / 106.7 FM (in Holmen area) or 1410 AM. Manley owns a 40-acre farm near Spring Valley, Wis.

Thursday’s opening is free and open to the public, so those who are curious about agriculture and organic farming can check everything out, ask all their questions to the experts.

“I think even for people who are into hobby or subsistence farming – growing food for yourselves,” MOSES Executive Director Lori Stern said on La Crosse Talk PM, “there is still has a lot of that showroom and a lot of great information about programs and information about how to grow seeds and what will work well for your soil or where you garden.

“So there are people in this showroom who are there and ready to answer all of these questions.”

Thursday will also include a dinner from pioneering Wisconsin farm-to-table chef Tory Miller, who competed in The Food Network‘s Iron Chef Showdown in 2018 – beating Iron Chef Bobby Flay.

Miller, who is also one of the three keynote speakers for the conference — he speaks at 6 p.m. Thursday — went from working at Racine’s grandparents’ restaurant while growing up to attending the French Culinary Institute in New York. He worked in some of the Big Apple’s top restaurants before returning to Wisconsin.

Now, Miller is focused on local food, local agriculture, and strengthening Madison’s food system, supporting those farmers and sourcing all local Wisconsin produce for his restaurants.

“Our caterer this year is Pogy’s, they’re in La Crosse, and Chef Miller has been working with the chef there to put together a menu that I think is going to be really exciting,” Stern said. “So not only hearing him speak, but also being able to taste that food.

“And the food throughout the conference – I mean, the education is really important, the farming community really important, but the food is always top notch.”

Miller was the 2012 recipient of the James Beard Award Best Chef for the Midwest. The cost of the Miller dinner is $30.

There will also be a cash bar offering, of course, organic drinks – what Stern called “local spirits”. She laughed when asked if by “local spirits” she simply meant moonlight.

“Sometimes as we look at these microbreweries and, I was just talking to a friend of mine who started a meat shop, getting these little establishments, getting people in, being able to taste their products is a bit of a challenge,” Stern mentioned. “He was laughing a bit about it – he was going to turn us all into smugglers. But no, we’ll do it from top to bottom.

The conference, which was virtual last year due to COVID-19, will feature over 80 speakers and 60 workshops. Masks will be compulsory, except for eating and drinking.