Vacation

Some fruits of spring labor, and a much-needed vacation.  At the beach, early morning coffee and cleaning out the camera finding that we have had productive spring harvest.  12 pounds of English peas, 5 pounds of baby cosmic purple carrots, 5 pounds of broccoli, 20 pounds of egg turnips and about 30 pounds of turnip greens to go with them, and 15 pounds of 5-color silverbeet chard.

Tomatoes have been moved to their final homes all around the garden and everything is starting to soak up the sun’s energy and get big and leafy.  Important urban garden knowledge gathered this spring:

1.  Broccoli, Cauliflower and Brussels sprouts take a LOT of room and don’t really yield much.  Not the ideal choice for a small gardening space.

2.  Turnips are a 2 for one deal.  Not only do you get the root, but the leaf production almost doubles the root production.

3.  Silverbeet Chard is VERY low maintenance and grows well in a tight space.

4.  Due to bed space and timing we had to pull the carrots early so they were on the small side.  Great producers, but needed more than just the spring to reach full growth.

Always something to learn when the dirt starts moving.  Time to start fighting back the summer weeds and move in to squash and tomato season.

Calabrese broccoli

cosmic purple carrots

Salmon, garden turnips, truffled pea, cabbage dumplings

Braised lamb shoulder, gnocchi, garden broccoli, feathered goat cheese

Kajiki, ocean lettuces, morels, tarragon butter

No Mercy

May 31, 2011.  90 degrees, 90% humidity.  Its way to early to be this hot!  I’ve already got cherry tomatoes forming!  I managed to grow 10 whopping pounds of English peas.  Not really a whole lot, but plenty to keep us occupied for the spring season.  Ten pounds of egg turnips have been harvested so far plenty more to come.  We have been showcasing them in a recent Bison special.  Below are pictures from our recent SPCA benefit auction dinner.

If this weather continues, I’m going to have squash from seed in a week!

Fried green tomatoes!

Foie, green strawberries, rhubarb

Bison, fiddleheads, ramps, morels, truffle

turnips and peas

It’s alive!!!

It looks as though one of our apple trees is actually going to produce fruit!  After a serious whacking (pruning) back in February, we weren’t real sure how the two trees would fair.  So far so good;  the other tree doesn’t seem to have blossomed so we may have lost out, but as long as the trees are stronger and thinned out to produce better next year we have succeeded.  The rose bushes around the parking lot are always a good indicator of when its time to start putting transplants in.  They have really shown off their beauty this year as well, not a single bush has closed buds.

On a sour note, after putting our squash transplants in the new beds, it doesn’t appear that we have fixed the “no growth” problem yet.  They seem to be yellowing and just staying the same size, going to need to do some research and get a professional soil test done to see what we need to do to get them productive.   Its going to be a real bummer if we lose 2 months of seedling growth to a non-productive bed again.

Apples!

Flowering Thyme

Looking cleaner this year

“Dead” beds

Purple Carrots

Black raddishes

Broccoli

Mint (never a problem)

Army of Peas

So some frost damage ate up my cabbage hopes, but the broccoli and cauliflower are holding strong.  Carrots and chard are starting to muscle their way through the topsoil nicely now.  The real success story goes to the peas though.  They seem to spring up about half an inch a night now.  Little green soldiers fighting off the remnants of winter’s last tendrils.  Warmer days have really started to push them along. The 1st round of compost has been moved to the 2nd stage of decomposition so its time to start another barrel.

Indoors the summer seedlings are doing great.  Squash is already 4-5 inches tall and all of the tomato varieties have successfully sprouted.  The apple trees have budded and bloomed after a brutal pruning in February so there is still hope they may yet survive.  They really needed some extra shaping work if they were going to stand any chance of surviving another season or produce fruit for that matter.  The beginnings of the spring menu are starting to roll out in the restaurant, so once we get the presentations nailed it will be great to have some new food to photograph.  New garden, new staff, new spring to pull out of the depths of the cold weather season.

Ready for Spring to be Sprung

First morels, couple of warm days to tease, one hundred percent ready for the cold to make its exit and move into a new season of food.  Amongst a couple others, just a few pics here from the Michael Shaps wine dinner we did on March 29th.  The pork belly and lamb were definitely stars of the show.  Definitely one of the best pork belly dishes I’ve had the pleasure of eating.  Smoked white bean puree, homemade blueberry “jam” and a sourdough crisp.  No credit to me on this dinner as I happened to find the rare weekend off and spent it in the Outer Banks while the rest of the staff completed all the prep.  Execution was about all I had to offer to the party once I was back.   A really nice dessert to follow it all up.  Great meal.

Rockfish, Capelini, baby carrots, green soy puree

Lobster salad, grapefruit, avocado and poached claw

Seared scallop, asparagus and morels, preserved lemon hollandaise

Red wine braised pork belly

Lamb loin, braised shoulder hash, oven dried tomato and roasted garlic

Rum raisin pound cake, stewed golden raisin compote, ginger ice cream

happyholidayshappynewyearsnewsoussmokeclears…… Now its march!

Chicken Fried Escargot!

Sweetbreads, Pickled Butternut, Brussels Sprouts

Blue Marlin, Soy bean and mushroom saute, Red watercress

Duck and pistachio pate, red watercress, “cranberry sauce”, grilled brioche

Homemade fettuchini with veggies and mushrooms

Hawaiian blue prawn

army of seeds starting

And that is about how it went.  Quite a holiday season we had at the hotel.  Just now getting through the madness.  I’ve been graciously promoted to Sous Chef, and have plenty of work to do.  Garden has once again been started…… INDOORS this year!!   We received the go ahead to use the greenhouse and so our seeds are already pushing 3-4 inch sprouts!   Couple weeks till they go out as we try to sneak out an early Spring crop before the tomatoes and squash take over everything.  Trying to get Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage a head start.  Chard, turnips, and peas to go straight into the ground.   Had plenty of photos, just no time.  I guess the Flu is good for something…

Full Circle

Back where it all started.  There wasn’t much success had from our fall crop attempt, lack of attention and change in sun pattern made it pretty tough to get things going.  Valuable lessons are about the only things we’re going to harvest this winter.    All considered, not a bad first season.  After looking back through the harvest journal here are the numbers:

For the fresh Herbs we grew approximately 65 pounds of usable product.  Taking the prices from our current purveyors, this would have cost the restaurant roughly $766.50.  Quite a showing for very little work when it comes to herb production.

For the Vegetables:  We grew approximately 151 pounds of produce priced at just over $400.00. Much more work than the herbs and not quite the cost return I had expected.  When it comes to the vegetables, you are not looking at very lucrative savings.  The rewards here come from fresh flavors and the satisfaction of personal involvement.  You can’t really put a price on the satisfaction of picking ripe tomatoes and okra every couple of days, or watching the family of birds that moved in over the summer produce numerous little birds as a result of having an accessible open food source and a safe place to live.

Take out the $150.00 that we spent on seeds, plants, supplies and growing we produced about $1000.00 worth of product for the restaurant this season at a mere 12% cost.  Not bad production for 600 square foot corner of a parking lot.  With more planning and better production out of our new beds, I’m pretty confident we can double the output with very little, if any, increase to cost.

Other things to note,  we’ve procured a key to the greenhouse next to the garden so I should be able to get an early jump on seedlings so they are nice and strong by the spring.  I managed to save plenty of okra and bronze fennel seeds to start next years plants.  Aside from the tomatoes,  they were probably our next strongest producers.  Also, throughout the summer and continuing now through the winter we save all of the scrap oyster shells from the hotel in hopes of lining the walkways throughout the garden once there are enough.  That will give me an excuse to get out there and play through the winter clearing out the sparse pea gravel that does a poor job of lining the walkways presently.  Interesting as well:  the building behind the garden has just been remodeled into a seven eleven.  I’m curious to see how the smells of newly applied compost and fertilizer mingling with the aromas of fresh brewed coffee attract the VCU campus passerby.  Laughably, we may have a civil dispute on our hands and this will almost certainly close the book on getting a bee colony started.  Tough break.

With Thanksgiving now gone, the giant Christmas tree looms stoically in the lobby of the hotel in preparation for tonight’s “Grand Illumination”.  This ought to bring a spike in business (mostly burger driven by my best guess) to the restaurant.   I don’t imagine I’ll ever get much of a culinary charge out of the holiday restaurant business surge or burger sales for that matter, but its a small price to pay in the grand cycle to keep the doors open and ensure that I’m back out in the dirt come spring!

Blue Collar Haze

Oyster Stew

Walnut and Beets

Its not even the holidays yet and I’ve got the beginnings of the busy season”funk”.  Albeit we did not receive much of a drop in business over the summer so I think that has diminished most of my saved up good nature for the occasion.  Only Mid-October and the days are already starting to blur.  The little things that usually can be ignored are starting to pile up and begin to irk even the most tempered of souls.  Days off become  driven by backed up domestic chores putting a sour taste on what was so recently relaxing and enjoyable.

The white collar on my chef coat feels like its turning a darker shade of blue with each subsequent day.  Attitudes become subtly more complacent.  Evening drinks become more frequent, quantities increase,  and conversation becomes somewhat dull and repetitive.  Praised be that there is the NFL to zone out to.    The feeding of people and the dishes repeatedly  prepared all become very overcast with a mechanical numbness.  Every once in a while a dish catches your eye that looks especially better than the rest.

Almost twelve years I’ve been doing this and the same “ruts” always swing back around.  I believe it is impossible not to get caught in them when your labor of love is so manually driven and often times overly criticized by a patron without the understanding of the daily endurance needed to cope with striving towards flawless consistency.  Three straight nights of serving two hundred or more people the best you have to offer with no mistakes and all you can remember is that fourth night when a patron so brashly explained how their poorly ordered steak was tough.  Always a mood killer.

It is my opinion that some people come out to dinner NOT wanting to be satisfied by the experience at all.  Some folks almost certainly are trying to score a complimentary return visit with their barrage of complaints.  Pack together long stretches of these days and nights  and its no wonder profane outbursts start to become like a bag of popcorn in the microwave.  They are scarce and infrequent at the start of the evening, but they slowly build to a violent crescendo until abruptly all that is left is a bunch of blown off steam and silence.  Nobody wants to be bothered at the end of the night.

Somwhere in the midst of it you start to feel like you’re not doing your finest and you have to constantly keep reeling yourself back in to your sound culinary ideals.  My mantra:  WWJD……   What would Joel [Robuchon] do? (we’re on a first name basis)  I’m sure though that even L’Atelier has its tough times, its the thought of perfection that helps.

Perhaps great chefs change their menus so often not only to to compliment seasons, availability, and customer appeal,  but maybe it keeps stable that thin string of sanity they hold on to so dearly at times like these.

“In defense” of the Chef…..

Tragedy struck about 9:00pm Saturday night last week as a 150/200 cover service was drawing to a close for the evening.  Two days I spent taking care of and preparing 7 amazing (and gargantuan) rabbits we brought in for the weekend special.  At the stroke of nine, my blood pressure boils as I realize only one rabbit dish has been sold.  Now, I’m not claiming culinary greatness here by saying that the rabbit dish was the furthest possible candidate from being terrible, but my newly acquainted rabbit buddies weren’t the only things that died when “locally” inspired culinary practice only produced one sale on such a busy evening.

Herein lies the tragedy of the “AMAZING” and “NEWLY DISCOVERED” local food movement that has blossomed in the last two years.  Everyone preaches it, but who really embraces it?  Grab your “environmentally sound” re-usable farmer’s market logo produce bag and go eat somewhere else if you cant venture outside the box for one evening to experience a dish that was produced in full no more than 30 miles from where you sit dining.  This is what later went on to fuel my expeditious reading of In defense of Food (just so I mentally had some ideals to relate my cantankerous thoughts of the general public to).

I was plagued with disappointment and doubt in the local dining community.  Luckily, the good outweighs the bad in the end.  After such a tyrade of personal anguish, the following two nights finished up by selling out of rabbit.  Running a parallel through my thoughts, Michael Pollan keeps my culinary soul inspired once again by connecting the health benefits of physical labor spent on growing your own food and restoring the lack of flavor in today’s supermarket offerings.  All the while I can’t help but think about the dying culture of people having dinner.  Just plain ol’ “mom cooked dinner”.   It’s now Monday evening, I’m having a cocktail on the porch when I look across the street and see a family through a window putting away dishes after having a meal in their warmly illuminated home. Something very scarce to see these days.  People taking evening strolls down the sidewalks like something out of an old black and white film.  What was I saying something about rabbit and thinking about hopeless americans…..   now smiling, the poor choices of the local dining community are on their way to being forgotten.

Photos from the last garden harvest.  Due to different scheduling restraints it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting a fall/winter crop going.  A bit too much procrastination on our parts.  Something really satisfying about seeing this much food and knowing you grew it….. no extras.

Quite a spread

Fruits of Labor! (Killer goats ‘r’ us camembert too!)

Simple is best

Lazy summer heat is keeping my motivation and overall enthusiasm to do anything but lay on the couch at a minimum!  Jack Gravely will tell you, ” Walk slow, and drink lots of water!”  I’d just as soon not move at all.  Heat makes it especially difficult to want to get out in the garden and do basic weeding.  Twenty minutes out in the heat and you are drenched in sweat wondering what lack of sense gave you the thought to be outside in pleasant 97 degree heat wave.  It is especially terrible when your exile from the heat is a professional kitchen that is no less miserable when it comes to temperature.  There’s no escape!!!

Ahhhhhh but there is after all!  I had the pleasure of getting a chance to make it down to Deltaville, VA for a mini vacation right on the Piankatank River/Chesapeake Bay.  Crab pots in hand, I sought to make a meal of the bay’s crustacean offerings!  I managed to pull in about 15 crabs or so then steamed them with some old bay seasoning to keep in line with tradition. Crab drenched in butter and myself soaked in cheap beer make for a fine afternoon on the “Rivah!”  Sad to say, after a little internet research once I was home, I feel extremely guilty knowing now that a couple  of the crabs were most likely under the 4.5 inch sizing limits of Virginia.  I admit my guilt here and vow to stick to the governing rules henceforth and hitherto for etcetera.  My excitement and zeal to eat such a fresh catch got the better of me.  A better person would have known beforehand.   (Sorry little tasty, buttery scrumptious, .25″ under size blue crabs….. I now have no excuse for a repeat offense.)

Outside of summer lounging, business at the shop has been unbelievable busy for a usually dead time of year.  Just a few food pictures of some dishes that have been floating around.  Daily offerings from the garden have become a realistic venture now that lots of veggies are coming out of the garden.  All these dishes came from just very simple preparations.  Nothing to fancy or over the top, just trying to allow freshness to do it’s flavor work.  The crew has managed to beat back the weeds and soon we’ll get the beds turned for late summer plantings.  I’m going to try and keep this little project going all winter long with the help of some good reading material and handy winter gardening methods.  Maybe there will be some grow lights and micro greens  to experiment with when the weather starts to turn colder outside.

The Spread

A daily pull from the garden

Wreckfish with gnocchi, truffle vin, and our grown corn and tomatoes

Sweetbreads with okra, radish, kohlrabi, and black eyed peas

Tortellini with summer vegetables. Andy makes some fierce gnocchi.