Second Shop, Chop, Dine features renowned chef, fresh food

Milford residents will have the chance to shop and cook with renowned chef Brian Polcyn when “Shop, Chop and Dine” returns for a second straight year on Thursday, July 19 at the Milford Farmers’ Market on Main Street in downtown Milford.

Kelley Kirchner, events coordinator for the Milford Farmers’ Market, said that there are 12 spots reserved for the event and that so far only four of them have been filled. The cost per participant is $100, which is then donated by Polcyn back to the Farmers’ Market.

“One of the goals of Shop, Chop and Dine is to show people the simplicity of buying local food and taking it from the Farmers’ Market and cooking it in your kitchen,” Kirchner said.

The participants will meet Polcyn at the Farmers’ Market at 4:30 p.m. and he will help them shop for items to cook during a lesson with him later in the evening.

“He’ll grab maybe fresh rabbit, farm-bred pork, a couple watermelons — whatever the land brings in at that time,” Kirchner said.

Polcyn is the chef/owner at the Cinco Lagos Mexican restaurant on North Main Street in Milford, in addition to being the co-author of the book “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Cutting.” He also made a guest appearance on the Travel Channel show “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain in 2010.

“We can pick vegetables or meat or whatever and we go back to my restaurant and in an hour and a half, I’m feeding them dinner (made from those ingredients) and provide the recipes and everything,” Polcyn said in an interview last month with the Spinal Column Newsweekly.

After shopping at the farmers’ market, Polcyn and the participants will head to Cinco Lagos, where Polcyn will give the group a personalized cooking lesson in which they cook using the foods picked up at the Farmers’ Market.

Afterwards the participants eat the meals they cooked.

“To teach people how to cook using the farmers’ market mentality is really quite exciting, so I contribute that,” Polcyn said last month.

For more information, call Kirchner at 248-891-8222 or e-mail mfm.eventsinfo@gmail.com.