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by Carole Kotkin

The Greenhouse Effect?   Fresh from the Garden?  Getting Fresh?

Anyone who remembers the intense taste of deep, rich, vine-ripened, regional tomatoes of their childhood will attest to the fact that the flavor of freshly picked vegetables far surpasses anything pre-peeled, pre-diced and vacuum -packed for convenience offered by national distributors. There's a certain satisfaction to selecting vegetables and fruits directly from the people who grew them or from your own garden. Today, healthy seasonal products are the foundation for a steadily growing number of restaurateurs promoting locally-grown, minimally-processed foods. This may be due in part to the enormous influence of Alice Waters, chef-owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, who began contracting with local gardeners to grow herbs, lettuces, vegetables and fruits for her restaurant in the early 1970's. Waters has always said, " my one unbreakable rule has always been to use only the freshest and finest ingredients available." She set the tone for the restaurant revolution that swept the country in the 1980's . Her "fresh from the farm" philosophy  of  all-organic, all-local and of-the-season produce is alive and well.

Chefs nation wide are searching  for the highest quality raw ingredients in their area with which to produce the good, well-prepared honest food they serve. As a result, cooperation between chef and farmer has never been better. "The chefs are leaders in the movement for healthy products by educating staff and customers, by what they put on the menu, and how they buy," says Sara Baer-Sinnot of Chefs Collaborative 2000, a group which promotes locally-grown, minimally-processed foods, environmentally-sound farming and humane animal husbandry. The three-year-old group, an educational initiative of Oldways Preservation & Trust in Boston has more than 1,200 chef members. "Boston chefs have banded together as a group called "Fresh Sheet" to order weekly from organic farmers," says Ms. Baer-Sinnot.  A more discerning public appreciates and expects to find excellent produce on their restaurant plates. Chefs from coast to coast have responded by purchasing fruits and vegetables from organic farms and, when time and space permit, by growing it themselves.

There was a time when the word "herb" meant dried oregano in spaghetti sauce or  a sprig of parsley on the plate, but that was before Alice Waters and her insistence upon straight-from-the-garden ingredients. Northern California was the place to be in 1980, and no better place then in the kitchens of Chez Panisse with Alice Waters. That's where Todd Muir found himself after graduation from the California Culinary Academy. Under her tutelage he developed a passion for both gardening and cooking. The Madrona Manor in Healdsburg located 70 miles from San Francisco in Sonoma County, was the perfect place to practice his style of California fresh cuisine. The elegant three-story Victorian Mansion was built in 1881 and purchased by Todd's parents in 1981.  They refurbished this fading beauty to its original glamour and the Madrona Manor now takes its proud place on the National Register of Historic Places.   A quarter acre slope on the eight-acre property is where Executive Chef Muir grows his specialty crops of herbs and vegetables. There's a peach orchard where rare white Babcock peaches are grown to be used in many dishes prepared in the esteemed restaurant .  "A garden is a must for a restaurant. I enjoy the aromatic quality of the fresh picked herbs-there's no comparison to the flavors of fresh to dried," says Chef Muir. Chef de cuisine, Craig Linowski chooses all the salad ingredients from the garden "where the growing season is seemingly endless" for recipes like Baby Lettuce with Baked Goat  Cheese, Herb Dressing and Roasted Peppers; Yeng & Yang Salmon Steak made with Fresh-picked Roma Tomatoes and Rosemary Leaves, and a signature dish of Layered Crabmeat/Tomato Napoleon Salad made with orange, yellow and red tomatoes grown in the garden.

When Chef Steve Amaral became Executive Chef at Kea Lani Hotel in Maui, Hawaii, in 1991 his first order of business was to establish relationships with small, upcountry farmers whom he says, "would control the destiny of my kitchen." Today Kea Lani's all-fresh menu is expertly produced by Executive Chef Tylun Pang, and is replete with the kind of fresh, flavorful organic fruits and vegetables one would expect to find in Hawaii. What started out as a small garden to augment Kea Lani's farmstead produce, has expanded into one acre and includes 200 varieties of organic herbs, fruits and vegetables, including 18 different kinds of mint, 14 varieties of basil and 7 types of hot peppers, from the hottest cayenne pepper to the Thai pepper. Kea Lani chefs inspect the garden daily, taking note of how each crop is doing and harvesting whatever is ripe for use that very day. Some of the exotic fruits offered on the breakfast buffet, plucked from the garden before the dew dries, are purple-fleshed passion fruit, Tahitian grapefruit, Moro blood oranges, kumquats, lychee, succulent Cherimoya, carambola and bananas from 200 Asian banana trees. Although Chef Pang grows the usual parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, the bulk of his garden is devoted to plants mainlanders seldom see. Kaffir lime enables him to create Thai soups and broth's; green papayas make a delicious salad; the many varieties of basil lend brightness to a wide array of Pang's dishes, and Hawaiian Chile Pepper plants give his style of Pacific Cuisine that necessary zing. The herbs go into freshly-baked breads, are creamed with butter, added to yogurt and are used in signature recipes for jams and jellies. Pang is adamant about keeping the garden pesticide-free.  "Organic produce not only is healthier for the body, it looks and tastes better," says Pang. The Kea Lani's garden continues to expand.  Whenever he sees an open spot on the grounds of the resort, Pang is soon there, hoe in hand, to plant something edible. A 1/2 acre is devoted to citrus trees. He will soon plant a one-acre garden in Upcountry Maui, which will be devoted to the growing of tomatoes, onions, strawberries and other produce that thrive in cooler climates. "Once you have the luxury of your own garden, it's hard to imagine running a restaurant without it," says Chef  Pang.

 When Lola and Bill Zimmerman parked an old wheelbarrow full of potted plants under a tree in front of their house and posted a sign "Herb Plants for Sale" they had no idea that 23 years later, The Herbfarm in Fall City, Washington (about 30 minutes from Seattle) , would evolve into one of the best restaurants in the Pacific Northwest. Lola's herbs sold so well that Bill converted an old barn on the property and turned it into a shop. The entire family got involved in the enterprise and in 1986 their son Ron and his wife Carrie Van Dyck started The Herbfarm school, mail order catalog, and The Herbfarm Restaurant. Here, in an expanded 1917 bungalow,  memorable meals are served that have earned The Herbfarm a reputation far grander than the charming flower-filled 32-seat dining room would suggest. Chef Jerry Traunfeld's uses only ingredients raised, grown or gathered in the Pacific Northwest.  He is known for innovative ways of fusing  herbs into his dishes, even in desserts, like lemon verbena sabayon sauce, or peaches in a syrup of anise hyssop, or a favorite-basil-white chocolate sauce. Rosemary will go into rich shortbread, thyme into a honey sauce for duck breasts, and nasturtiums will go into a butter spread. His menu might include such unusual items as wild nettles, and thimbleberry shoots in addition to foods gathered from nearby fields and woods. "Since I was a kid, I've always loved to cook and garden," says Traunfeld who worked at Ernie's and Star's in San Francisco before coming to Seattle.  "This is a unique position, a small and lovely restaurant practically in the  middle of the gardens where we can prepare food the way it used to be-totally from scratch with extraordinary raw materials, " says this 1996 James Beard Best American Chef Award nominee.  I have complete control over every dish-from the planting of the seeds to the last garnish. It is a chef's dream." From its modest beginning, the Herbfarm's offerings of herb and vegetable plants has grown to over a quarter million plants in 639 different varieties.  Last year 100,000 visitors explored the 17 gardens. "It's amazing to remember that this all truly started from Lola's wheelbarrowful of chives," Carrie mentions. Since education is a primary goal of The Herbfarm, signs identifying plants in the organic garden have been erected, and guests are invited to take a self-guided tour at their leisure in the hope that they will start their own organic gardens at home.   For those who want to learn more, The Herbfarm offers classes in a wide range of subjects in everything from cooking and organic gardening to ways to weave an herb-gathering basket.  Securing Herbfarm dinner reservations is the stuff of local legend. Open only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from the end of March through Valentine's Day, they book 75% of their reservations on one day only! Reservation phone lines are open at 9:00 a.m. one day in April. So many people called for reservations in April 1992 that the phone volume -exceeding 100,000 calls an hour-shut down a USWest switching station. To get one of eight seats left unbooked for each meal, guests may call at l:00 p.m. on the Friday of the week before they hope to visit.

 Craig Shelton arrived at The Ryland Inn in 1991, after a three year stint as sous-Chef at Bouley in New York City, with a goal   to turn it into a world-class country restaurant replete with a garden. Housed in a former stagecoach stop built in 1796, and nestled in some 50 acres in western New Jersey horse country, this is a beautiful area that Chef/proprietor Shelton calls a "well kept secret". The Ryland Inn has been operating as a restaurant for the past 58 years, but, under Shelton's reign it has become one of the top restaurants in the county.  Shelton modeled the Ryland Inn after Raymond Blanc's renowned Manoir aux Quatr' Saisons in rural England.  "I wanted to grow my own ingredients," he says. "It's the only way to guarantee the quality of the food." You can walk out through his kitchen door and over to his five-acre organic herb and vegetable garden where there are rows of every imaginable herb, 150 at last count. He  also grows 75 different lettuces and over a hundred types of other vegetables, including 12 varieties of tomato plants as well as berry bushes and fruit trees.  Shelton claims it to be largest garden of its kind in the country, and says, "The garden has provided me with unique ingredients.  I couldn't obtain sixty percent of what we grow anywhere else and there is nothing like cooking an absolutely fresh product."  He uses French intensive planting techniques (small plots with five to seven varieties of the same vegetable planted at different times so there is always some variety ready to be harvested). During the summer months, he proudly says, the restaurant is practically self sufficient.  At other times of the year he deals with purveyors from all over the world. Shelton calls his food French (he worked with the famed Joel Robuchon in Paris), but American creativity is surely at work in a dish like grilled Maine sea scallops served with cepes, onions and bacon with a puree of garden grown herbs. Shelton has made his restaurant a coveted destination, with patrons driving in from Philadelphia and New York to delight in his seasonal menu.

In 1926 acclaimed architect and industrialist, Addison Mizner built the most expensive 100-room inn of its day, the Cloister Inn (renamed the Boca Raton Hotel & Club in the '30's)  located in the heart of South Florida's Gold Coast . After nearly seventy years the landmark  Cloister Inn remains as the main hotel for today's Resort complex, replete with Spanish-style architecture, courtyards and European fountains. In the middle of all this splendor, right near the original resort entrance, is the Chef's Herb Garden. Based on real estate land values, the herbs grown in this garden are probably the most costly in the world. "It has drawn more attention from passers-by than any other feature here," says Craig Morell, horticulturist and nursery manager of the 356-acre resort. The idea of a working herb garden came about partly because of a casual comment made to Morell by the chef that his kitchens bought more than $70,000 worth of herbs each year. "That's a lot of money just for herbs," thought  Morell , "especially when they grow so readily in South Florida's subtropical climate ".  Morell collaborated with the culinary team to develop The Chef's Herb Garden.  The garden rotates twenty varieties of edible plants including 75 exotic fruit trees such as carambola, mango, and mamey as well as basil, chives, chocolate mint,  butterfly ginger, garlic chives, edible flowers and tropical oregano. "We are tremendously excited about this garden taking a tasteful bite out of the food  budget," says Executive Chef James Reaux. "This isn't just a few, token square feet of hidden area referred to as an herb garden.  It's very substantial and will eventually grow to 6,000 square feet." Chef Reaux likes to  challenge himself and his culinary team with new food ideas; a concept that extends to the garden where they are now trying to grow vanilla plants, hybrid baby pineapples and orange berries.  The culinary staff harvests the garden's bounty daily  to  provide the kitchens with fresh ingredients to be used in the 50,000 meals per week  the kitchen produces.  Chef Reaux worked at the Westin Hotel in Maui, Hawaii and the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles before coming to Florida.  His  signature style is a fusion of classical European and contemporary American Coastal cuisine. Among the most popular dishes are Sorrel Crusted Yellowtail Snapper with Carambola Juice and Chili Pepper Smoked Tenderloin of Beef with Portobello Mushrooms and Blueberry Tarragon Glaze. "Nothing is more rewarding than walking into a dining room and knowing that a thousand people are enjoying your food," Reaux says.

 Arthur Forgette, owner of South Pointe Seafood House and Brewing Co. (recently purchased by Smith and Wollensky) in Miami Beach, and the father of two young children, was concerned that kids living in an urban area would never know the taste of real food or understand its connection to the earth. With the cooperation of South Pointe Elementary school he turned some unused land behind his restaurant into a full-fledged Childrens' Herb and Vegetable Garden.  Thirty sixth graders, armed with shovels and hoes laid sod; arranged concrete slabs in a checkerboard pattern, then planted herb and vegetable seedlings between the squares. Clumps of rosemary, strands of tarragon and buds of thyme soon appeared, and tomatoes; not the pink, mealy, cardboard-tasting impersonators, but the deep red fruit with rich garden aroma add color to the crop. Most of the harvest goes home with the kids. "They've made herb bread and pesto with the basil from the garden" says Forgette. The children made 100 bottles of herb infused vinegars which they sold to buy supplies for their garden. This project taught them the importance of using minds and muscles in a creative way. "Besides learning about running a small business, gardening involves lessons in math, science, physics, biology and good nutrition. They learned to appreciate a carrot they grew as much as a candy bar," enthusiastically remarked Forgette. At the end of the school year, the students invited parents to a brunch featuring dishes cooked from their harvest. Being involved in the growing and harvesting of produce is the key to understanding food when it reaches the kitchen.

That sense of connection with the earth, with the taste of freshness, may be the motivation behind the growing passion among chefs for their own herb and vegetable gardens; and not only for the excellent quality of the produce, but for the heirloom varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs that would be unavailable to them otherwise.

-Updated 3-30- 98-
 

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