Harris excited to bring ‘farm to table’ concept to the island through education
A Florida native, who was first introduced to cooking by his grandmother at the age of 12, has shifted his career path after accepting the position as the resident chef of the new Culinary Education Center of Sanibel at The Community House.
“I’m 50 now. I wanted to retire at 55,” Chef Jarred Harris said. “I want to teach now.”
Harris stumbled into the job as the new resident chef at The Community House, which he is very excited about because he loves to teach. He’s very excited about sharing the farm to table movement with the island because it gets people closer to their food, and teaches them where their food comes from.
“If you are going to eat meat you have to be responsible. I think people should know where their food comes from, how it was treated and what it is was being fed. If you are going to eat meat that is just the responsible thing to do,” he said.
Some of the areas he hopes to educate the community about is sustainable fish, and beef.
“We have to figure out how to produce it or source it sustainably, so we can have it for our grandkids and great grandkids,” he said of fish.
Buffalo, Harris said is a better meat to eat because of how they are fed and treated. He gets his buffalo from a farm, Three Sons, in Punta Gorda. He said they are in the slow, farm to table movement.
As the resident chef, Harris is in charge of the culinary education for children, adults and senior citizens. He said the education for the youngsters will kick off at the end of the month with the Sanibel School after school kids.
“They are going to be growing vegetables. Every class we have they are going to make something and bring it home. It is going to be organic and so good for them,” he said.
Harris currently has 200 seedlings that he is going to plant in boxes at the Community House for the youngsters.
In addition to classes at the House, he said they will also be offering classes online because they have a beautiful media center set up in the kitchen, so he can record himself.
The newly renovated Community House will also include a garden behind the kitchen. Fruit trees are scattered on the property ranging in thornless black berries to mangos, which will also be utilized.
“The kitchen garden is going to be a functioning garden. We are going to raise micro greens, heirloom vegetables ingenious to Florida,” Harris said.
The mission is to also get people interested in food that is not genetically modified.
“There are ways to do things without genetically modifying something to make it bigger because it does things to us that we do not know yet,” he said.
The passion for food has always been about experience and tasting. When Harris was young, he said one of the conversations with his friends every day was discussing what they had for dinner.
At the young age of 18 Harris went to culinary school at Johnson & Wales University in Charleston, South Carolina. The experience taught him a tremendous amount in regards to technique, which opened his eyes. While attending school, he worked at Disney as the food and beverage manager on and off for about nine years.
After leaving Disney, Harris started his own restaurant, the Beach Chicken Cafe, in Orlando, where he was born and raised. The menu included sandwiches and ready made meals that included such ingredients as rabbit and pigeon.
“The Gulf War kicked in shortly after that, so I sold that business and started another one right around the corner, which was a bar where I met my wife,” he said of Oasis Bar & Grill. “We had a giant barbecue pit out back, which was wonderful.”
After almost three years, he became engaged and moved to England with his wife for almost two years. While in England, Harris got into the pub business and started working at a gastro pub.
His journey then brought him back to the states where he worked for a couple different catering companies. One of those gigs eventually lead him and his wife to Portfolio, a high end catering company out of Naples. Harris did high end parties for such people as Jeb Bush when he ran for governor, affording him the opportunity to meet the Bush family.
While there he met Doris Reynolds, author of “When Peacocks Were Roasted and Mullet was Fried.”
“Fantastic woman, bless her. She is one of my culinary heroes,” he said.
Ken Ryan, owner of Urban Farmer, is his agricultural hero because of his knowledge.
After almost four years, Harris and his wife moved to Sanibel in 1997. A client they had in Naples introduced them to the Thistle Lodge, leading to the position as the executive chef for him and food and beverage director for his wife.
In 1999, Harris left the lodge and went to the Sanctuary.
“The Sanctuary was my dream job. I had never been in the club business before. It had always been high end restaurants and high end catering. It opened my eyes to a whole different world of people who join this organization and they don’t care what it costs. You get to play with some of the most incredible ingredients and some of the coolest kitchen tools you have ever seen. They look after you because it’s a club and you feel like family, so for the first time in my culinary career, I felt this is home,” Harris said. “That is the best chef job on this island.”
Unfortunately in 2004, his mother-in-law became sick bringing he and his wife back to England in 2005. During the 10 years that they lived in England, they owned and operated two pubs – one a gastro pub and the other a traditional pub. The pubs occupied a former coaching inn, which was built in 1437.
“We renovated it. It was a hotel originally,” Harris said, called the Boxford Fleece.
The guild room, which was the trading room for all of the fleeces, was turned into a space that fit about 250 people for parties.
After leaving England they returned to Sanibel. Harris took the better part of 2015 off, due to the amount of hours he put in running the pubs in England.
“I was burnt out,” he said.