Sep 24 2008
Posted by chefRob under Glass Door, Vegetables
Our Products part 2 - Produce
Organic heirloom carrots photographed by Chef Robert Conaway & aGreatChef.com
As a chef, I have always tried to procure the best possible produce for the restaurants I have been in charge of. Back in the Blue Chalk/Steelhead brew days, I was lucky enough to meet Stuart Dickson, the farmer (at the time) at Stone Free Farm in Watsonville CA.
My experiences with Steelhead and Stuart was one of the best relationships I have had with a farm to date. My friend and fellow chef Jeff and I would go down to Stone Free once a month and wander through the fields, seeing and tasting what Stuart was growning. We eventually dumped our flavorless organic greens mix for a custom blend that Jeff and I created “in field”. We spend an hour or so tasting all of the greens that Stu was growing, taking field notes and samples. We then returned to their office and re tasted the greens, working to strike a balance between sweet, salty, bitter and neutral greens. This mix at the time (1996) was revolutionary as not too many chefs were concerned with creating their own mix and certainly not ones who ran breweries. It was fun, and a bit trying to explain Orach to our guests from Europe and the Central Valley, and wll worth the time.
I have carried this long tradition of using the freshest organic ingredients available here at the Glass Door. While Stu and Stone Free are too far away to use, I am working on getting the same relationships together with local soCal farmers while utilizing our rooftop container garden (more on this later) to bring the best organic produce to our friends and guests.
If you would like to look into the past, follow this link to read an article from 1999 about Stu & Stone Free. There are a few free recipes on it too.
Best,
chefRob
