The Proof Is in the Taste
Fourth-generation Anne Arundel County farmer Deana Tice wants to bring out the carnivore in your locavore.
“Most families don’t have the farm connection any more. Everyone needs to know where food comes from and how it’s raised,” she says. So Tice has made it her mission to “share our farm and agricultural lifestyle as much as possible.”
The best way she knows is getting people to taste the meat she and her family raise.
Husband Joe Tice, a fourth-generation farmer himself, is also assistant leader of Boy Scouts Troop 853 in West River. The father of three teenage boys, he knows growing boys like to eat. So he keeps the Scouts involved with meals for campouts and oversees the boys in cooking. For eldest son Josh’s recent Eagle Scout ceremony, the menu of farm-raised meat included chicken wings, followed by pork ribs, loin ribs, Mississippi pot roast and racks of beef and lamb.
Josh’s class of 2019 graduating seniors at Southern High School got tacos in a bag. The recipe? Open a small bag of Doritos or Fritos, dump in meat and fixings and stir. The tasty treat is eaten right out of the bag, with a fork.
“They ate it all,” Joe said.
Enticing shoppers at Anne Arundel County’s weekend Farmers Markets takes a different bait: En-Tice-Ment sausage, ham, bacon or scrapple cooked on the spot and assembled inside soft buns as breakfast sandwiches.
This year’s Governor’s Buy Local Cookout, a feast in celebration of Maryland’s Buy Local Week and its agricultural vitality, is the latest of the ways Tice puts the proof of her product in your mouth.
The family has long provided meat to other chefs at the annual cookout, as they did this year for chef Monica Alvarado of Bread and Butter Kitchen in Annapolis, who chose their ground pork for her Banh Mi Bowl.
On their first turn as chefs, feeding Gov. Larry and Yumi Hogan and 500 or so of their friends — including legendary Oriole Ironman Cal Ripken — the Tices wanted to hit the jackpot.
They joined with Anne Arundel County mushroom farmers Stacy and Andy Eckels of Windermere Farm to create their Enticing All Natural Steak and Mushroom Sliders.
“We thought about steak and what goes with it in many research-and-development nights at our kitchen counter, where we sampled various ingredients till we came up with the perfect recipe,” Deana says.
These are not your everyday sliders. Instead of ground meat, it is En-Tice-Ment London broil, charcoal grilled by Joe Tice and Andy Eckels, layered with grilled mushrooms and served with a little horseradish on French rolls.
“The governor said it was delicious,” reported Deana on Cookout night, flush from heat and praise.
Here’s the recipe. Do yourself — and Deana Tice — a favor, and add it, and locally raised meat, to your summer grilling repertoire.
Both En-Tice-ment Farm and Windermere Farm sell at the Anne Arundel County Farmers Market Saturdays and Sundays at Harry S Truman Parkway at Riva Road.
Get the full 2019 Governors Buy Local Cookbook at https://mda.maryland.gov/Documents/2019-BLC-
Cookbook.pdf. Find past year’s cookbooks at https://mda.maryland.gov/pages/buy-local-cookout.aspx. #BuyLocalCookout