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This spring Chef Ted McCormack of Flag Hill Winery and Distillery in Lee, New Hampshire was interviewed by Eat Well Guide volunteer Stacey Hamblett. Stacey is pursuing a graduate degree in holistic nutrition with the hope of sharing with others her passion for healthy food and a healthy planet. Here’s her profile of Chef McCormack.

“I grew up cooking with my mom and in the summer we had a vegetable garden,” Ted McCormack notes, when asked for the origins of his interest in local food. “Fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and peppers made their way onto our plates quickly.”

While spending his high school years working part time as a dishwasher, pizza maker and prep cook, a chef supervising him suggested that McCormack attend culinary school. He took the advice, graduating from Johnson and Wales in 1991.

McCormack found his interest in local ingredients growing slowly, organically, and, well, locally.

“My wife and I have grown garden produce for many years. The taste and nutritional value of fresh food is better. We shopped at farmers markets for ourselves, and eventually I started buying something at the markets to run on special for the restaurant. I would also bring in some heirloom tomatoes which we grew just for the staff. This turned into an attempt to educate myself and share the fun.”

Interestingly, though, it was the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States that ignited McCormack’s current passion for local food.

“Working at a restaurant the week of and following September 11, 2001, we had shortages or back orders on food we had purchased. This is when I understood the concept of ‘just in time inventory.’ Shipping was delayed from all across the country, so I couldn’t get everything I needed right away from our purveyors, but I could go to the farmers’ market and buy food for my family. A regional food distribution system would improve our ability to sustain ourselves if a similar disaster recurs.”

Asked why he prioritizes local and sustainable products in his business today, McCormack explains that it’s become a way of life.

“I know the farmers and have been to many of their farms. I trust their farming practices are respectful of the soil and the animals. If I am to ask an animal to die for my consumption, then it deserves the full respect that it gets from feeding to slaughter to plate.

“A chef has to work hard to get customers to trust them. By means of repeat business, a customer starts a relationship with a restaurant, and if the restaurant is not valued by the customer he or she may not come back. But if the relationship becomes friendly and the customer is willing to trust the chef and the restaurant, then everyone wins. A chef will enjoy the culinary freedom more so if the customer appreciates and enjoys the food. It is a priority to have happy customers. It is also a priority to preserve our agricultural resources, all the while supporting our local economy.”

And, where, for a chef, is the balance between pleasing customers and educating them about sustainable food?

“My first objective is to create great tasting and looking food,” McCormack says. “If I can accomplish this with local ingredients, then all the better. Most people just want good food first – then the story. Food security, safety and nutrition are causes for everyone’s benefit, and are getting more attention in the national media. It is a grey area between celebrating a harvest and preaching a philosophy, but if the master chef is wholly and heartily invested, then the message is clear and believable. I find that some people are interested in asking questions about the food, and others are just happy to have had a nice meal. But at least they were exposed to some information. If they want more, they come back.”

Flag Hill is primarily a winery and distillery, located on land that has been a working farm for more than two centuries. The dining room offers cooking classes – most recently “eggs-cellent,” “pot luck sides,” and, this Friday, June 19th, Campfire Cooking, which will unveil the mysteries of grilling meat and fish over a live fire, as well as cooking vegetables and making roasted apples and Dutch oven cobbler – tent-side.

Flag Hill’s dining room offers monthly dinners – reservation only – featuring regional New England Cuisine, with the vast majority of ingredients coming from local farms and producers. For June’s dinner, on the 26th, choices will include beer battered squash blossoms, strawberry and spinach salad, bison sirloin steak, paella, and vegetarian black bean enchilada. More on the schedule and menu can be found on Flag Hill’s website.