Keewaydin Farms | Driftless Curiosity

- Luke Zahm: This week on Wisconsin Foodie: - My name is Rufus Hauke and I grew up on this farm, Keewaydin Farms.

It's a 200-acre farm just outside of Viola, Wisconsin.

You know, you know what it's like leaving and coming back and realizing like, wow, this is where I grew up.

I knew I wanted to farm organic.

That was an easy choice.

- Joy Miller: Today, we're having the Sunset Farm Dinner.

We're working with Chef Kyle from Origin Experiences.

- Kyle Sahlstrom: My whole idea with the business was how to bring a community of people closer to the food.

I wanted to actually bring the farmers together with the community members, and I didn't really understand how to do that until the trailer and the kitchen.

- Luke: It doesn't get any better than vegetables pulled right from the farm.

I'm gonna go in for the big bite.

This is a banger.

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

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It's on everything we make.

- I'm going out to pasture with the cows this morning.

- Announcer: At Organic Valley, we're on a mission to save small family farms.

- Farmer: Tasting pretty good?

- Announcer: And you can join us.

- Farmer: [laughing] Girlfriend's on a mission.

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- Twenty-minute commutes.

Weekends on the lake.

Warm welcomes and exciting career opportunities.

Not to mention all the great food.

There's a lot to look forward to in Wisconsin.

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- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit "Swiss"consin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

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Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Luke: Additional support from the following underwriters.

[relaxing music] Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[upbeat music] We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet.

We are merging of cultures and ideas, shaped by this land.

[sizzling] We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

[glasses clinking] We are storytellers.

We are Wisconsin Foodie.

[dreamy music] We're outside of Viola, Wisconsin at one of my childhood friends and longtime farmer's home, Rufus Hauke, owner of Keewaydin Organics and his wife, Joy Miller.

Together, they own and operate the farm, but also Driftless Curiosity.

Tonight, I'm really excited to see how Rufus and Joy meet their love of food and community and providing these experiences for people.

And I can't wait to see how all of this comes together.

- My name is Rufus Hauke, and I grew up on this farm, Keewaydin Farms.

It's a 200-acre farm just outside of Viola, Wisconsin.

It was a dairy farm when I was a kid.

So, my parents had registered Holsteins.

40 to 60 cows at one point.

They were all, you know, stanchion cows, just like the good old Wisconsin image that you think of.

And you know, they bought the farm in '76.

So I was almost born here.

I was two weeks late, didn't want to come out.

So I've been two weeks late my whole life.

So I was, you know, I was a dairy kid growing up.

'96, my parents' business failed, just like a lot of dairy businesses, and the farm, you know, kind of sat idle for a couple years.

And in that time period, I went out to Colorado and ski bummed and goofed around.

And my last year out there, I grew a little garden and I kind of just, I don't know, the light bulbs went off.

You know, you know what it's like leaving and coming back and realizing like, wow, this is where I grew up.

This was the place that I formed my life, my ideas of who I was.

And it was still here, and it was available for me to do something with.

I knew I wanted to farm organic.

That was an easy choice.

What we did past that was kind of hard.

We tried all kinds of different things.

We got back into dairy farming for a couple years.

About 2015, I kind of, like, started scaling back down to where I'm at now, which is just a couple acres of vegetable gardens, and then the rest of our farmstead is hay and pasture and other things.

- Joy: Wild areas.

- Luke: What brought your life back into focus?

Because I feel like, you know, you talked about 2015, and I think this is an amazing segue, like... - Yeah, failure.

[Luke laughing] - I was actually thinking more like... Joy?

[laughing] - So I grew up in Kendall, Wisconsin.

I went to UW-Madison for a few years, finished in UW-Lacrosse, and then I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska for seven years.

I worked with a few nonprofits and tribal organizations up there.

And then when I came back in 2016, I met Rufus soon after that, and I like to say, like, I fell in love with a farmer, a farm, and farming, like a trifecta of falling in love.

And it was just the whole experience.

And I realized right away that if I wanted to be with Rufus, I also had to be a farmer because it's an all-consuming lifestyle, and it's not your 9-to-5.

It's not something that you put away at the end of the day.

So, I just started working beside him and just falling in love with the land and the people out here.

And I realized that I was totally ruined for domestic employment because being outside and being your own boss is absolutely wonderful.

- Just one more.

- Rufus: And to me, gardening is, you know, I get now that there's a broader routine.

You know, there's that seasonal routine, but every day is different.

- Joy, talk about what Driftless Curiosity is, because I think that that's re-identifying who you two are and what you do for the community that has so much broader context.

- Yeah, So Driftless Curiosity started in 2021, and Rufus really had this larger vision for the farm.

And I came alongside and was, like, brought the organizational piece and structure to it.

He always had a vision of this place being a place for the community, a place of healing, a place of recreation and education.

How do I take this beautiful resource, this piece of land, and use it for the community?

We landed on, our mission is to deepen people's connection with the land through curiosity, experiential education, farming, social justice, and the arts.

So, we bring people to the farm and we highlight people in the Driftless that have some sort of skill that has to do with the land.

So, our nonprofit's all about land-based learning.

So anything that connects you to the land or is grounded in the land, we're up for it.

- What are we doing here today?

- Well, today we're having the Sunset Farm Dinner.

We're working with Chef Kyle from Origin Experiences.

He came to us with the idea of wanting to do dinners on farms.

He got this beautiful food truck and decked it all out with everything that he needed.

He's been here since Wednesday.

So he comes, he sets up, he camps, he brings a team, and we just, like, start harvesting and putting stuff together, and I mean, it's awesome.

- Luke: And that's pretty great.

- Joy: So beautiful.

- Kyle: We have to find cherry tomatoes.

- Like, pick them yet?

- Rufus has them.

Is Rufus out here?

Hey, Rufus!

You got cherry tomatoes?

Yeah?

- Rufus: You can go pick them right now.

- Ripe ones?

- Rufus: Yep.

- 60?

- Rufus: 60.

- My name's Kyle Sahlstrom.

So, my whole idea with the business was how to bring a community of people closer to the food.

I wanted to actually bring the farmers together with the community members, and I didn't really understand how to do that until the trailer and the kitchen.

- Ladies first.

[chuckles] - Kyle: What's up?

- Rufus: Cherry tomatoes.

- Kyle: Thank you, cherries.

The process is always different.

The meal is always changing, but basically, it revolves around me and the farmer shooting back and forth of what's gonna be available, what time of the year it is, and then really figuring out how to incorporate the connection with the dining experience.

Okay, so... What we got in here is some local durum from Great River Milling, and some AP flour from Meadowlark out of Madison.

And then it's just our beet juice.

We're gonna mix that together and make rigatoni pasta.

The rigatoni tossed with the goat cheese and the hard sheep's cheese.

The marinated golden beets on top and then it's gonna be dill.

Super creamy, super fresh, lots of beets.

- You have this amazing facility to be able to do these dinners literally, at the origin of where the food comes from.

What sparked that motivation?

- Probably me working at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York.

It's a restaurant that sits on an 80-acre farm with a educational facility there, as well.

Their kind of philosophy was the cooks were kind of a part of the farm experience as well as the farmers were kind of part of the cooking experience.

- Luke: So when you do these experiences, what feeling or experience do you want people to leave with?

- Like, people are just so caught up in the daily do and not really having time to unwind.

I want them to leave with a wow factor and feeling a part of a closer-knit community.

If we are healthy as people, our community is gonna be healthy, and we just evolve from there.

All the other problems are after we eat and drink and have shelter, right?

- Luke: Yeah.

I love walking through, you know, the herbs and the aromatics.

- Oh, yeah.

- Luke: It kind of takes you right there every single time.

Look at this dill.

- Oh, yeah, beautiful.

- Mm-hmm.

- Tender fronds.

You stick them in a bag for a little bit and then they start to get a little leathery.

- Yeah.

- Kyle: A little less enjoyable.

We'll pick them right off here.

You get that, almost like a peppery anise, very high anise.

- Luke: Yeah.

- I like it.

- I do too, man.

I mean, there's really nothing better than being able to grab your ingredients from the ground.

- Kyle: And you can even get, I mean.

- Those little guys?

- These little guys are the primo.

- Luke: Man, this is fun.

Ideal way to spend a summer day, making new fronds.

So, obviously this is a big farm.

You got a lot going on here in the gardens.

There's a lot of people kind of moving in, coming around.

It's a pretty big deal.

Talk to me about, you know, what we have going on here with the dinner.

- So guests are gonna start arriving at 3:00.

There's gonna be a greeting, appetizer, a few appetizers, a drink pairing.

Then Rufus is gonna lead them on a guided tour of the farm while we are serving them some appetizers on their tour.

Then they're gonna be led back to the table, where they're gonna sit down and start their meal.

[dreamy music] - Rufus: Here, I'm gonna give you this.

I'm gonna go grab a couple like, big tomatoes for the center display.

- Big tomatoes?

- Rufus: Yeah, big tomatoes.

- Joy: Okay.

- Rufus: Ooh, here's some big ones.

Yeah.

Beefy!

Do we need to do anything else or can...?

- I think you need to probably get into your dinner wear.

Farm wear to dinner wear.

[laughing] - Good idea; thank you, thank you, okay.

- Joy: Beauty and the farmer.

[both laughing] - Rufus: Yeah, yeah, that's it.

[upbeat folk music] Hi, beautiful.

- You got something in your teeth, right here.

- I got something in my teeth?

- Nope.

- Get it?

All right, folks.

Hello, hello!

We put a lot of time and effort into this event today.

We wanna thank you for joining us.

I've always felt like sharing meals with people is one of the most important things that we can do.

You know, having that connection of sitting down and having an incredible meal in front of you with people that you love dearly, that's what life is all about.

And so, we're glad and happy to have you join us to build family and community.

And so, with that in mind, we'd love to just show you some of the things we do around our homestead.

Come on in and over, you guys!

I've always looked at gardening as kind of a lifelong learning experience.

Like, I'm never gonna know everything about gardening.

Probably the day I die is the day I'll know everything.

You know, I'll have that moment and then I'll be dead.

[all laughing] We're trying to create a full cover on the soil and plant things as intensely as possible.

Obviously, with all this land, the goal here is to get as much value out of each bed as possible.

So, I mean, it's kind of amazing.

Like, if you think about, you know, your tip of your finger, there's trillions of lifeforms in the tip of your finger.

- Of soil.

That amount of soil.

- Yeah, probably.

Well, in my finger, yes.

[all laughing] There might be trillions in my, oh, boy.

You know, I truly believe we can grow as much food as we need to survive and we can have a beautiful planet, as well.

You know, it doesn't have high nitrates in our soils and in our drinking water.

And you know, a big part of the teachings that we kind of adhere to is anything that has an -icide at the end of it, insecticide, pesticide, that's all death.

That's all killing stuff, you know?

And we don't necessarily need to do it.

I mean, that's just our belief, and I know there's probably differing beliefs even within this group, and that's okay, too.

I mean, part of this whole thing is having the discussion about it, right?

So let's go over to these other gardens 'cause we're getting some hors d'oeuvres now that were actually grown in the gardens.

So, you guys are sampling a little bit of Swiss chard right now.

This is one of the first crops I started growing.

If anybody wants to actually get their hands dirty, I would really encourage you to just kind of feel what the dirt's like.

Okay.

You can see it.

It's rich, it's loose, it's easy to work, right?

So, let's go and check out our greenhouse.

- Guest: Oh, you can smell.

- Rufus: Doesn't that smell great here?

Yeah.

[dreamy music] [people chatting] - It's like a dirt cake, essentially, with like a, with a butter mixture.

- Guest: Oh, you're kidding.

- Dirt cake radish?

- Guest: That is actually really good, yeah.

- Guest: Wow.

- Dirt cake radish.

- Yeah, yeah, we came up with a really... We got more coming.

I'll get another round, though, bring 'em over.

[upbeat folk music] - So this dish started off with cranberry beans from Meadowlark Organic.

That was kind of the base of how I designed the dish.

It's just cranberry beans, lots of garlic cooked down.

It's a stewed bean, so it's kind of plump.

It's got a tougher skin on the outside, as I'm sure you've tried before.

Charred corn chimichurri, dried cranberries, a 62-degree poached egg, and then a charred popcorn foam.

[groovy music] - Luke: Mmm, that's good, though.

- Guest: Yeah.

- Yum.

[people chatting] - How's everything tasting?

- Guest: Good, good, honey.

I mean, like... - Well, we only got a few left, so.

- Guest: Only got a few left?

[both laughing] [dreamy music] - Kyle: So, this course, we have a beet rigatoni.

Local chèv and dill.

All the things that we put together earlier.

We picked the beets.

- Luke: Yeah!

- Kyle: We picked the dill.

Had that wonderful conversation out there in the garden.

- Luke: Awesome.

- Here you are.

- I'm so excited.

- Yeah.

- Thank you so much.

- Enjoy.

- Rigatoni pasta, one of my favorites of all time.

Pasta shapes are created in order to pick up and enhance the flavors around them.

And walking through the garden today with Chef Kyle, it was easy to see that there was so much connection and depth and beauty in all the dill fronds and the goat cheese and the beets cut up and roasted for this dish.

I know that this thing, as the kids say, is gonna slap.

Mmm.

[chuckles] So you don't often think of this push-pull of like, big umami when you think of mac and cheese, but this, for me, has all the vibes of, like, a mac and cheese with this really, really powerful, earthy blast.

The goat cheese is light enough where it kind of accentuates.

It adds a little bit of tartness, but a ton smooth richness.

And then the dill curiously at the top adds this little spark of flavor that pushes this dish from, like, just ordinary mac and cheese into something worth its own plate.

This is a banger.

[dreamy music] - Yo, can you get me a pan, hot?

Can you start searing these, one side?

We're gonna just flip it and then plate.

This, we have a roulade, so it's the breast and the thigh added together in a roll.

We poach it first and then sear the one side.

We take all the skin off.

So we make these skin chicharrónes, kind of.

Chicken chicharrón, and then we also have a trout roulade kind of done like a mosaic.

So strips of trout with nori in between and a little crispy skin on top.

And then we have obviously the broccoli and the cabbage from the farm, with a little bit of chicken jus over the top of the cabbage.

And then Deep Rooted's hooked us up with some microgreens.

- Luke: Yeah, thank you so much, my man.

- Kyle: Yeah, thank you.

- Luke: This has been an experience, for sure.

Much appreciated; I can't wait.

- Yeah, enjoy, enjoy.

- Luke: I love that chicharrón.

That little bit of extra crispy texture on the outside of that chicken breast.

I'm gonna go in for the big bite.

[people chatting] Well, that's delicious.

Like, straight up delicious.

It's got all the nuance of, like, fried chicken.

So really, really moist meat that kind of is encapsulated by that sear.

So you get a lot of the robust caramelization and that Maillard reaction, but then you get that crispy, salty chicken skin.

And it takes me right there.

Right back to Appleton or my grandma's kitchen or any place you've ever had banging fried chicken.

This has got that in a couple small bites.

That was lovely.

One of the things I love about trout, it tastes just as fresh as the waters that it comes from.

So in this instance, you kind of get all of those floral notes that you might detect in, like, say, a mountain stream.

Every time I taste trout, that's when my brain goes.

Something cold, something crisp, something fresh.

The fried trout skin on top.

The softness with the crunch, it really ties the whole thing together.

And then in the middle, it doesn't get any better than vegetables pulled right from the farm.

[dreamy music] - We wanna thank you from the bottom of our hearts for joining us today.

This, as I said earlier, is extremely meaningful to both Joy and I, to share a meal with people, to have meaningful conversation, because at the end of the day, that's what it's about.

It's about finding love and family and friendship and fricking fabulous food.

[all laughing] Right?

And could we give just a gigantic round of applause to this guy?

Thank you.

[crowd applauding and cheering] And the crew.

And then, our team back there.

- Luke: I've known Rufus since I was a little kid.

I gotta say, when you grow up here, you grow up in rural America.

You grow up in a place that is often defined as being someplace between Chicago or Minneapolis.

Or between La Crosse and Madison.

Or between Richland Center and Viroqua.

[all laughing] And if those are the defining towns, like, you know these people.

Some of you are probably related to some of these people.

But I am so honored, like everyone here is, about creating this identity.

All of you are about experiencing that identity.

You've enabled people to come to this place and experience Keewaydin Organics and Driftless Curiosity, and open the door for the rest of the people in the community, in the Midwest, in the United States, so they can come here and also understand that this is no longer culinary flyover country.

This is ground zero.

[all laughing] So thank you so much.

- Rufus: All right, well, let's keep the party rolling, eh?

[dreamy music] [Luke laughing] [people cheering] - Do I have something in my teeth?

Dan?

Are my teeth good?

I suppose; beets and goats.

♪ Beets and goats and beets and goats ♪ ♪ And beets and goats and beets and goats ♪ ♪ And beets and beets and beets and beets ♪ ♪ And beets and beets and beets ♪ [imitating Dana Carvey] I'm Hans, he's Franz.

We're here to dill you up.

[both laughing] What's the dill with pickles?

I mean... - I can tell you've done this.

- No, I haven't actually.

We've never done a dill episode.

[both laughing] What's the dill with trying to get out of the garden but not falling down?

Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

- The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[people cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- I'm going out to pasture with the cows this morning.

- Announcer: At Organic Valley, we're on a mission to save small family farms.

- Farmer: Tasting pretty good?

- Announcer: And you can join us.

- Farmer: [laughing] Girlfriend's on a mission.

- Announcer: Organic Valley.

- Twenty-minute commutes.

Weekends on the lake.

Warm welcomes and exciting career opportunities.

Not to mention all the great food.

There's a lot to look forward to in Wisconsin.

Learn more at InWisconsin.com.

- Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit "Swiss"consin and see where your beer's made.

- Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure, stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site, high-quality butchering and packaging, The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore: Know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Luke: Additional support from the following underwriters.

[relaxing music] Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you'll find past episodes and special segments just for you.

[whimsical music]