“Eat local” is something I’ve always been behind, especially when it comes to restaurants. Recently, I’ve been on a local produce kick. 

I’ve always preferred local produce, and you might say I love local food from my head to-mah-toes.

I appreciated it even more when I recently visited Vine Foods, a new company working to disrupt the produce supply chain through regenerative farming in southeast Memphis.

Vine Foods is growing 100,000 pounds of tomatoes for its initial season to distribute first to local restaurants and then to local grocery stores. 

It’s no secret, at least to my family and friends, that eating a raw tomato is on my no-list because of the texture. The seeds and the jelly-like mush scare me. Don’t judge; we all have our things.

So, after a tour of the farm, which has five high tunnels with a total of 5,000 tomato plants, I was able to try Vine’s four heirloom varieties of tomatoes with some flaky sea salt, olive oil and basil.

Vine Foods raises heirloom tomato varieties. (Greg Campbell/Special to The Daily Memphian)

I was nervous, but I tried the tomatoes with all the toppings. And Andrew Adams with Acre Restaurant described it perfectly: 

When he bit into one of the tomatoes, he said it was like a “big umami bomb” with “full-flavored, concentrated tomato.”

All the other attendees on the tour, including restaurateurs and other media outlets, got to take some tomatoes home. So, after a few days of my tomatoes ripening on the counter, I did some experimenting. 

I replicated the toppings at the tasting, even buying the flaky sea salt, and made tomato slices topped with Italian seasoning and cheeses. My roommate made us a baked pesto chicken with tomatoes on top. 

The tomato-themed dinner was better than I expected; the acidity and juiciness paired nicely with our almost nightly watching of Peacock’s reality series, “Love Island,” which is also juicy. 

Jones Orchard is located at 7170 U.S. 51 N. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)

I also recently tried some local Jones Orchard peaches, delivered by my neighbor, who had picked more than enough. We got a dozen.

I usually have peaches in a cobbler or other dessert, and with about six of them, I made a peach crumble. 

But I haven’t had peaches on their own since the pre-packaged, juice-soaked, cubed-peach fruit cup my mom used to put in my lunchbox. 

When I tried the Jones Orchard peach, after I blanched it to remove the fuzzy skin, I knew I would no longer be thinking of the fruit cups or the big grocery-store peaches. 

I guess I’ll be making the haul to Millington, at 7170 U.S. 51 N., to pick some peaches — and the Jones Orchard strawberries — if I can’t wait until Saturday at the local farmers markets. 

This week in food news

Throughout the last few years, multiple Belly Acres locations have closed. (Sophia Surrett/The Daily Memphian file)

Belly Acres’ two ownership groups have filed lawsuits against each other. Harold “Lee” and Jennifer Scifres bought Belly Acres in 2019 and expanded the brand in the metro area. Brothers Adam and Brian Leith bought into the brand in 2024. But the Leiths now allege the husband-and-wife team of breach of contract, and the Scifreses allege the brothers are trying to push them out of their business. 

In Food Files, I reported that Tous les Jours is opening a location in Overton Square in the former Hopdoddy Burger Bar. Also, a new liquor store could come to the former Cactus Liquor and Wine on Poplar Avenue, and a Jack’s Family Restaurant could open on Winchester Road.

The Beauty Shop's Thai Cobb salad is a bed of romaine lettuce with crispy Peking duck, cherry tomatoes, green beans, mango, hard-boiled egg, avocado, Gouda cheese, green goddess dressing and jerky. (Gracie Driver/Special to The Daily Memphian)

Jennifer Chandler shared Hog Wild’s recipe for Savory Summer Avocado Dip, which is Ernie Mellor's family recipe. Mellor owns and operates Hog Wild and A Moveable Feast Catering Co. 

In last week’s $15 Deal, Gracie Driver talked about The Beauty Shop’s Thai Cobb salad, which was a favorite of The Daily Memphian’s first food writer, Jennifer Biggs. Priced at $13.75, the salad has a bed of romaine lettuce with crispy duck, cherry tomatoes, green beans, mango, hard-boiled egg, avocado, Gouda cheese, green goddess dressing and jerky.

The Daily Memphian’s Memphis Grizzlies reporter, Drew Hill, traveled to Celtic Crossing to watch the World Cup, where the Irish pub was packed with soccer fans. It was a stark contrast to almost exactly a year before, when an SUV barreled through Celtic’s patio.

For the Fourth of July weekend, Geoff Calkins interviewed Luke McLaurine, a World War II veteran and a Nazi prison camp survivor. McLaurine told Calkins about his time in the war, his five-month encampment, and his return home, where he ran the family bakery, McLaurine’s. The beloved bakery opened on Highland Avenue in 1924, and McLaurine, now 102, said he ate doughnuts for breakfast every day 

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