A seasonal chef in Navajo country finds Native American foods for his restaurant

After a two-decade career as a restaurateur in the Los Angeles area, John Sharpe moved to Winslow, Ariz., in 2000 to open a restaurant in the newly restored, historic La Posada Hotel. He had grown accustomed to buying produce directly from farmers in Southern California, but in the forbidding environs of Winslow, on the vast, canyon-riddled plains of northern Arizona, there were no local food producers -- at least none that he could immediately find. So with help from the Center for Sustainable Environments in nearby Flagstaff, he set out looking for local suppliers. Five years later, Sharpe has assembled a far-flung network of farmers, shepherds and foragers who supply his restaurant with a surprising bounty of indigenous ingredients, from Navajo Churro lamb and tepary beans to cholla cactus buds and skunkbush sumac.

Read about John Sharpe's culinary discoveries in Navajo Country