Moooovin’ On Up: Wisconsin Public Television likes local cooking show

Eric Koeppel

A still from an Around the Farm Table webisode.
A still from an Around the Farm Table webisode.

Gather the family ‘round the tube and break out the cheese curds because Around the Farm Table was picked up for a four-episode mini-series on Wisconsin Public Television!

ATFT host Inga Witscher.
ATFT host Inga Witscher.

In case you missed our last article about ATFT, let me get you up to speed. For the past year Inga Witscher (the host), Joe Maurer (the musician and editor), and Rick Witscher (the set designer) have been putting out a series of 6 to 8 minute episodes on the Around the Farm Table website. The webisodes usually feature one or two local recipes and one farm, and focus on the preparation of ingredients, interviews with local farmers, farm tours, and traditional production methods. The cooking action usually takes place at Inga and Joe's own dairy farm, St. Isidore’s Mead outside of Osseo, Wis.

The web series attracted WPT’s attention last fall and the crew was asked to put together a pilot. When the folks at WPT saw the pilot (which was recently screened at the Volume One gallery) this psast spring, the show was accepted.  The crew was thrilled, telling us, “We are so excited to be able to tell the stories and take the viewers on a tour of these wonderful Midwestern farm.”

The new shows will be 26 minutes long and “will feature two and sometimes three farms, giving the viewer a better sense of agriculture here in the Midwest.”  Just like the web series, the crew hopes that the TV show highlights the importance of agriculture in this part of the country.

The trio has been working day and night on the new episodes while maintaining their farm.  They begin each morning with some milking and tending to their chickens and cows before hitting the road for a day of shooting. They then “try to fit as much as [they] can in before heading home for the evening milking.”  Now that’s the work ethic that makes a Sconnie farm great.

Go Green is sponsored by:

Xcel Energy
Eau Claire

Go Green is sponsored by:

Xcel Energy
Eau Claire