The Farm Belly’s breakfast biscuit. Chef Meg Fama, at the grill: "I just want to be part of this neighborhood." On a recent afternoon at The Farm Belly on the corner of Front Street and Grand Avenue, owner and head chef Meg Fama was expertly cracking two eggs with one hand and rhapsodizing about Fair Haven. “Years ago, I worked at a little breakfast spot right on the river, out of the way, and the people were just so down-to-earth,” said Fama, 51, who recently opened the freshly remodeled space at 20 Grand Ave. overlooking the Quinnipiac River for breakfast and lunch, as well as catering. ​“I would see customers walk across the parking lot from the kitchen and each one would always get the same thing, and I loved saying, ​‘Hey Mike, morning to you, here’s your breakfast sandwich.’”As she whisked the eggs, Fama, a Shelton native, said she designed the open kitchen to get that same neighborhood feeling. ​“I want this to be a place which is part of the community and when people come in, I want them to know me just as much as I know them.” Fama halved a biscuit. ​“In high school I worked in a deli,” she said. ​“Corner Deli in Trumbull. We did all egg sandwiches in the morning. I never thought it would be my life’s work, but it was just so much fun. It was fast-paced and I loved that. People would come in, they’d be grumpy, and you’d get some coffee in them, some food, and they’d walk out happy.”With that, she poured the mixture onto the grill. ​“These are Farmer’s Cow eggs,” she said, referring to a cooperative of six family dairy farms with headquarters in Bozrah, Conn. — it includes The Farmer’s Cow Calfé — one of 100 farms she plans to do business with during the height of the summer. It’s a practice that began when her grandmother would send young Fama out to her garden with a basket and instruct her to pick what she needed for Sunday dinner. ​“It was ​‘farm-to-table’ before it became a thing,” Fama said. After Corner Deli, her jobs over the next three decades ranged from line cook to fast-paced toast duty to high-in-command chef at fine dining restaurants, where she watched deliveries come from around the world. ​“I couldn’t understand why you would order food from so far away when we had access to fresh food that tasted better and lasted longer at the hundreds of farms in our state,” she said. For a while, she worked as a chef at Common Ground, a high school that includes an urban farm and environmental education center. During the summer, she had her students preserving vegetables for the winter and making pickles and sauces, teaching them how they could eat homegrown food year-round. On weekends, they set up a stand at the Westville Farmers Market. ​“At the end of each one, all the farmers and vendors would trade what they hadn’t sold,” she recalled, as she finessed the eggs with a spatula on the grill, then added a mix of shredded cheese from Litchfield’s Arethusa Farm and Sankow’s Beaver Brook Farm in Lyme.She stayed in touch with both of those farms, as well as a host of others. In 2015, after a six-month break from decades of restaurant work, she embarked on a new chapter: a food truck housed in a 1984 Chevy. She named it Farm Belly, so that, she said, ​“people would know this is from a farm and it will go straight to your belly.” There, she developed a philosophy that has her menu constantly changing: ​“Let the farms give me what they want and I’ll figure out what to do, versus, ​‘can you give me ten pounds of this,’” she said.The food truck, which operated primarily out of the CitySeed Wooster Square Farmers Market, as well as at weddings and other events, was a resounding success. Then the Chevy took to breaking down. Fama shifted to catering full-time, hewing to the same philosophy. ​“I would explain to a bride or a groom, ​‘This is farm-to-table,’ so if you want certain things, like tomatoes in May, I’m probably not the right caterer for you,” she said, adding salt and pepper to the eggs.“That’s usually it as far as spices and seasoning,” she said. ​“I’m getting everything so fresh it doesn’t need anything else.” Besides, she said, quoting her grandmother, ​“the food will tell you what it wants.” So has the neighborhood, it seems, specifically the nurses at Fair Haven Community Health Care next door; at their request, Fama agreed to stay open an hour later so they can get a sandwich when their shift ends. With that, she folded the eggs into the sandwich. ​“I just want to be part of this neighborhood, to fit in,” she said, before taking a seat in the sun-filled eating area; a board displaying each of the farms she works with occupies the back wall. “I want this to be a place where anyone can come whether they’re all dressed up from church or they just rolled out of bed,” she said, as the sunlight angled across the hardwood floors. ​“I want this to be a meeting place where everybody feels welcome.” As with everything Farm Belly, there was a lovely simplicity and freshness to Meg’s Breakfast Biscuit. The biscuit distinguished itself for its tenderness and slight tang while the eggs delighted with their velvety texture, the cheese and chives adding richness to the flavor. The sandwich was nourishing. It was sustaining. Polishing it off, this reporter felt all was right with the world. The Farm Belly is open from Wednesdays to Sundays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eventually, it will be open daily.Meg's partners. Exterior of The Farm Belly. ...read more read less