RISON - During the COVID pandemic lockdowns when everyone was stuck at home, Chris Chambliss was surfing through YouTube videos trying to find something to cook. "I worked my way through college in a restaurant, and I always wanted to cook high-end stuff," he said."I'm on YouTube and I starting seeing these extravagant dishes," Chambliss said. "The very first thing I cooked was a souffle. So I cooked the souffle and it blew my mind and I was addicted." Next he tried preparing some chicken francese and then something called farinata, which he describes as a savory Italian pancake made with chickpea flour. Chambliss described it as basically an Italian version of a funnelcake, only more savory than sweet even though it is often served with syrup."I liked it. I liked the smell of it when I'm cooking it," he said.So he decided to try it out on the grandkids during vacation, and they gave it a thumbs up. That encouraged him to start preparing it for adults to sample and they liked it as well. "Two years later after that I was sitting at my apartment in Hot Springs, hanging out with some people and I get a very small glimpse of 'You could package that farinata (mix) and sell it'," he said. "I just took it from there." On Monday, Chambliss was inside the ShareGrounds processing kitchen at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds in Rison doing just that - putting together his very first batch of farinata mix that will be marketed under (continued from page 1) his new company’s name, Foederati Foods. Chambliss said he believes he is the very first person in the United States to make and market a mix especially for farinata.The ShareGrounds is a unique program that helps aspiring food entrepreneurs launch their own retail food product. While the program provides a certified commercial processing kitchen to make the product, David Hill, who oversees the ShareGrounds program for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, said one of the bigges...
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