story by Donna Hecker & photography by Riah Durick and Talitha Schroeder

March is such a tough month to endure. One moment the sky is blue and the sun is shining; the next brings gale force winds, or freezing rain, or heaps of snow. There’s the return of daylight savings time, and its induced sleep deprivation, followed by the wait for spring to finally, officially, truly arrive.

All of which is why we like to pamper our guests at Holly Hill Inn with succulent steaks, rich vegetables, and big red wines, so we always return to our annual March steakhouse menu.

This year, the real star of our Great American Steakhouse Menu is a 24-oz. dry-aged cowgirl ribeye steak from Berry Beef in Newcastle, Ky. and our dining room is the only place you can enjoy one. But first, a little background –

For almost 25 years, we’ve practiced a culinary and business philosophy that supports our local food economy, buying over $10 million of Kentucky Proud foodstuffs in the process. As Chef Ouita says, we’re not just Kentucky Proud, we’re Kentucky Damn Proud!

We believe that Kentucky culture and agriculture are inextricably intertwined. Water-powered grist mills, towering stands of sweet corn, backyard tomato patches, wild blackberry briars, and well-seasoned cast iron skillets have inspired our poets, artists, and singer-songwriters for generations.

There’s no better example of this synergy than the writings of Wendell Berry and the work of the Berry Center and its partner Our Home Place Meat. As Berry famously reminds us, “eating is an agricultural act.”

We would add that it’s also a political, artistic, environmental, and anthropological act. That’s a heavy burden to lift, but one made lighter by a food system which benefits both farmer and eater, and preserves our natural landscape with farming techniques that tread lightly upon it.

Wendell Berry has always been passionate about animal husbandry. The rolling hills and green pastures of Central Kentucky aren’t just good for raising champion Thoroughbreds, they’re ideally suited for grazing cattle and other livestock.

Drawing on a model first championed by Berry’s father, John M. Berry, Sr., for the Kentucky Burley Tobacco Grower’s Cooperative, his daughter Mary Berry has developed a beef program that contracts with local farmers to raise cattle for Berry Beef and Rose Beef. Both are processed at nearby Trackside Butcher Shoppe and available for wholesale and retail purchase.

It is increasingly easier for restaurants like ours to serve both types of beef, as more farmers join the Home Place Meat program. What began as a way for them to market young grass-fed cattle (Rose Beef) expanded in 2021-22, with the addition of the Berry Beef line for animals that were raised to maturity on a combined grass-grain diet.
According to Beth Douglas, director of Our Home Place Meat, the new program has been a boon for farmers.
While the Berry Beef program is a different avenue from where we started, it still provides The Berry Center an opportunity to positively impact the economics of Henry County farmers. Because of Berry Beef, we’re harvesting an additional 300+ animals annually. Rose Beef filled the gap for farmers and now Berry Beef is filling a gap for restaurants and chefs. Our end goal at Home Place Meat is always to provide opportunity and economic stability to our farmers.

We’ve been buying Berry Beef through What Chefs Want (aka Creation Gardens) from the beginning so we were thrilled to get the very first dry-aged steaks. Why the excitement?

Because a dry-aged steak represents an incredible investment – by the farmer who keeps his animal on the land (and on feed) for an optimal length of time, by the processor which tracks and segregates those carcasses, by the wholesaler who sends the meat to an facility for aging (expending valuable time and inventory capacity), and by the restaurant that purchases the meat at a premium price for its guests to enjoy.

Here’s how Duncan Paynter, local proteins specialist for What Chefs Want, broke it down for us:

Animals are slaughtered at Trackside and hang on the rail usually for five days. They are broken down there and sent to us. We send the primals to Atlanta to age for 35 days. They are cut and packaged in Atlanta and come back to Louisville, then go out to the restaurant the next day. The whole process is around 45 days from slaughter, to dry age, to packaging and delivery.

Holly Hill Inn general manager Jackie Anthony says – It’s so flavorful; the aroma of that steak sizzling in the skillet is amazing. You can smell it all over the dining room. Our guests are loving it. We even had a Louisville guest who spent the night in Lexington so he could Uber out and order one for his dinner.

Here’s our recipe for surviving March – support your local farmer, savor a delicious steak that you can’t get anywhere else, raise a glass to the culture of agriculture. And make us all Kentucky proud.

Berry Dry-Aged Beef - the back story

Related Content

Traditional Ulster Champ