Restaurant: Pasture and Plenty, Madison, WI
2024 Hog Farmer Appreciation Dish: Summer Raspberry Mousse with polenta cake, bacon tuile, balsamic reduction, fresh basil and raspberries
Christy McKenzie of Pasture and Plenty has a simple, but lofty driving mission behind her restaurant. “We make decisions by the ethics we hold,” she says. “We want to minimize waste, we want to make sure we’re bringing clean food into our kitchen, and we’re preparing food that we want to serve to our friends, neighbors, and families. When we do that, we know people come back because they feel those values. It comes through in everything we deliver.”
Pasture and Plenty is a specialty market and restaurant, but it’s also a demonstration kitchen, catering and events space, and meal kit pick-up and delivery service. Christy and her crew give the local community access to healthy, locally sourced meals and food products. In 2021, she launched the P&P Makeshop, a food incubator kitchen for the BIPOC community and women-owned food businesses. The focus of all of it is to create and connect community around issues of food equity, access and agency.
For her work, Christy was recognized as a 2024 James Beard Foundation semi-finalist for outstanding hospitality.
In addition to her work in the kitchen, Christy is also the owner and publisher of Edible Madison, a quarterly publication focused on the food and agriculture of Southern Wisconsin and the region’s dynamic local food movement.
For the Niman Ranch Hog Farmer Appreciation Dinner, she and Pasture and Plenty pastry chefs Liz Vande Hay and Karen Veliz Osorio created a light raspberry mousse on a bacon-scented polenta cake topped with fresh basil, fresh raspberries, balsamic reduction and a bacon tuile.
