STUDIOKITCHEN

Creekside

50% of what  chefs actually do besides cooking, making sure the plumbing works or babysitting another twit who just graduated from an expensive cooking school and thinks he's Alain Ducasse is actually sourcing great iingredients. That generally is a problem unless you are in Napa or Pennsylvania in season and indeed there is a bounty of good stuff. One of the lesser known farms that deserves more recognition is Creekside in Marysville.
Click :   CREEKSIDE FARM LLC

Fantastic young salads and specialty vegetables in season. I would actually say that the "Fine herb blend" is probably the best salad I have eaten anywhere period. I simply used it back in the old days as a garnish for Slow cooked ocean trout with olive streusel. If you are inclined you will find it on E-gullet.
It is pictured above.

Also shown :
Merlot Radish.
Bianca Riccia Frisee.
Bronze Fennel.
Red Frill Mustard.
Delfina Cilantro on the pineapple foie gras.
Herb blend on the Wagyu Niku Jaga.

End of Summer.

Summer's end, the garden was a moderate hit this year, tomatoes and herbs were fantastic but we got a late start. Now to plant some fall vegetables and wait for next year. I leave you with the flowers and the bees.

Pigs can fly indeed.

The first rule of cooking in any professional medium is that there are always better purveyors, it just depends on how much you want to pay for the goods. I have heard from a few  fellow chefs that Flying Pigs Farm has some of the tastiest pork around. Serendipitously I came across Jen Small at the greenmarket last saturday and we talked about her pigs. I made the mistake of asking if they were Berkshire Pigs, she cringed and said her pigs were much better rare heritage breeds like Large Blacks, Gloucestershire Old Spots and Tamworths. I had read about these old breeds in my pig handbook, yes there is a pig handbook that is quite complete and this is to serious pork consumption as the Merck manual is to the practice of medicine. In any case I wanted to taste the meat and she handed me two pork chops for way less than they cost. The meat has a good deal of marbling and firm texture. I simply pan roasted with maldon and pondicherry pepper. The flavor is fantastic, great chew, seriously grassy porky flavor and much better than the SRF Kurobuta. This is going to have to make it's way into my inventory for fall.
I can see this served with green coriander seed spaetzle, a light jus and preserved fruits in the style of a chutney.
Here the pork chop takes well to a light jus infused with prunes and Earl Grey tea.
Certainly a fall dish but that is about 8 weeks away.
Oink.

Framing The Garden

The garden is framed finally. Natural soil and compost will be delivered this weekend to be incorporated into the existing soil which is pretty good already. Transplants start next week.

Biodynamic Community Gardening.

It's now time to prepare the plot for transplanting. The community garden has great soil, cheap annual fees and tons of direct sun. Today we weeded and cleaned out the plot. The plan is for parallel rows of culinary herbs. Seeds have been pre-germinated, composting has been taking place fr weeks, the soil will be tested for nutrients this week  then the hard work begins. More to come as season evolves