Chefs Collaborative

In New Orleans earlier this month, scouting Summit locations, we met up with local friends for dinner at Acme Oyster House. When Melissa ordered red beans and rice (it was Sunday), our friends looked at her like she was nuts.

“Red beans and rice—that’s Monday’s dinner,” said Ray, shaking his head as he focused on his charbroiled oysters. We ordered the dish anyway. They were good, but Acme’s oysters (sourced from Galveston) were better. The next day at a meeting with our host committee, the history of red beans and rice was a suggested seminar topic. A couple days later, red beans were central to the Katrina evacuation story of our sales rep from the CVB, who headed north to Baton Rouge where she was bereft of her preferred brand of canned red beans. “I could never live outside New Orleans,” she said.

I picked up some lore when I bought the children’s book Today is Monday in Louisiana by Johnette Downing—on Mondays, laundry day, while the washing got done, red beans could simmer on the back burner until dinnertime.

Tradition is big in New Orleans, and the city’s attention to the past makes it a compelling place (among other things). But, say locals who sit on our Summit host committee, there’s an embrace of innovation that’s been rising since Katrina, and people have been creating new approaches to old problems.

Support of small, socially-minded entrepreneurs is big here. So are charter schools, two of which host an important program called the NOLA Edible Schoolyard. Farmer-chef connections, fostered by the Crescent City Farmers Market, are still in their infancy, though judging by the turnout of chefs at our host committee meeting, the desire to build a more farm-direct agriculture system is simmering.

We know the 2011 Summit would be exciting no matter where we held it, but New Orleans has just the right vibe. With the help of board member Stephen Stryjewski (whose restaurants we haunted while in town) and other community members from here, here, and here consulting on the program and events, we’re sure the vibe of this decadent old city in the midst of an exciting renewal will get into your blood like it has in ours (and certainly, it won’t be the only thing in your blood).

That Monday in Louisiana, we passed on rice and beans. They’re not on the menu at Feast, a new restaurant in the Warehouse District with a tight nose-to-tail program (warm pork fat on toast, anyone?) and a no-factory-raised-meat policy. Ever. Another tradition to foster!

Tis the season for the top ten list!

To give us a little hope for the new year, The Food Channel just came out with the top ten food trends predictions for 2011.   We particularly love #1 – the canning come back, #7 – fresh everyday, and, of course, #3 – local somewhere.

If you have twenty minutes (and some found materials) to spare, have a look at FarmHack, a site recently launched by the Young Farmer’s Coalition for the more resourceful among us.  Sure, it isn’t a top ten list, but I’m sure we could compile one out of the coolest projects.

The 2010 RAFT Grow-Out season has been a great year for veggie lovers around New England!  A quick recap of the season by the numbers:

• 94 chefs and farmers participated by growing and cooking with New England heirloom vegetables.  Thanks to all our amazing farmer and chef participants for making it such a great season! Grow-Out farmers grew some truly delicious and special vegetables this growing season Following on the heels of the epically bad growing season of 2009, this year’s season brought forth am amazing bounty.   The Grow-Out chefs used their skills to transform the locally-grown produce into diverse and delectable dishes, served at their restaurants and at special events around New England.
• 300+ people around New England participated in Grow-Out events, including field trips, special dinners at participating restaurants, an amazing and elegant Heirloom Harvest Barn Dinner at a farm in New Hampshire and a fun down-on-the-farm barbecue in Rhode Island.  Community members around New England came together to enjoy both the fruits of the farmers’ labor and the talents of participating chefs.
• 11 varieties of heirloom vegetables with New England histories and culinary traditions were grown by local farmers and prepared by chefs, featured in dishes ranging from Jimmy Nardello Kimchi to Boston Marrow Squash ravioli, lobster bisque with roasted Gilfeather Turnip to Long Pie Pumpkin Panna Cotta.  A few of the veggies in particular, including the aforementioned Jimmy Nardello Pepper, Long Pie Pumpkin and Gilfeather Turnip, proved themselves to be outstanding and we are sure you’ll be seeing them around into the future!

Thanks to all who participated, came to events, volunteered, and grew and cooked with heirloom vegetables.  It’s been an amazing and fun season, and we hope that the connections that farmers and chefs have made through the Grow-Out will continue to bear fruit in the years to come.

More photos from the season’s Grow Out events on our Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chefscollaborative/sets/

For this month’s Member Spotlight, we’ve taken a trip (mentally, of course) to the West Coast, to chat with Seattle Chefs Collaborative Board member, Chef Roy Breiman of Cedarbrook Lodge and Copperleaf Restaurant.  Read on for Roy’s multi-cultural, intercontinental journey stemming from an appreciation for culinary traditions and terrior, and to learn what kind of legacy he wants to leave behind.

Chef Roy Breiman

Chefs Collaborative: Could you start us off by telling us a little bit about your personal history?
Chef Roy Breiman: Oh, it’s your typical story.  An American chef falls in love with a craft and pursues it to the highest level. It was really about finding the best route to take. In the early stages, there was a lot of interest on my part and urging from my family to go explore the history and traditions of European families who have been doing this for centuries. I very much wanted to move there to live and work.  This story is very typical nowadays, but back when I decided to do it – in the late ’80s, early ’90s – it was a new idea, and it was very hard to get over to Europe to work for a significant amount of time.  I pursued working in the best restaurants in Europe – the ones run by chefs with great family traditions and excellent culinary reputations.

I was fortunate enough to get a job out of culinary school in San Francisco working with young culinary talents directly of the boat so to speak. French nationals who were uniquely proud of their cooking traditions; chefs who had worked for legends like Alain Chapel, Michel Guérard and Roger Verge.  I learned a lot about history and the tradition of cooking from them and after three years of intense trial by fire kitchen etiquette I ended up in New York  working for Christian Delouvier then at the Maurice in the Parker Meridien in Midtown NYC, again instilling another dose of standard driven work ethic and creativity in my craft  After a few years, I went back to West Coast and had my first big break, but I realized that I really needed to go to France first to round out a foundation for the future. I went to Versailles at age 27, to work at a two star Michelin restaurant Les Trois Marche. After my stage, I traveled through Burgundy via Paris, and fell in love with the south of France.

When I returned to America, I took the position of Chef de Cuisine of Restaurant “Antoine” in Le Meridien Newport Beach and became the youngest and the first American to run one of their fine dining restaurants. Le Meridien had a visiting chef program, so every month we would host a new chef who we had flown over from France.  I spent a year networking with chefs and telling them that I was interested in working with them. After two years, I was fortunate to be accepted at Le Chateau Eza a small eleven room Chateau located between Nice and Monaco.  I got approved for a three-year Visa. It was absolute ‘visualization manifestation’! I saw exactly where I wanted to be, and from there, began to consider my responsibility as a chef and the legacy I wanted to leave behind.

Tunisian olive groves harvesting with local Bedouin family

C.C.: Speaking of a chef’s responsibilities and legacy, would you tell us about your “AHA” moment with regard to sustainable food?
R.B.: While in France – a country with a huge agricultural tradition – I learned a lot about the process of identifying superior products to superior cuisine. When all is said and done, that is the essence of great cooking. The quality of the product is translated to the quality of the dish. The farmers really are the stars. The flavor profiles are different due to terrior – vegetables here are different from vegetables there. The food in France was full of flavor and positive energy. I correlate that with the stewardship of the lands over the centuries; that correlation between superior product and what we do as craftsmen is the key to nurturing. I became aware of this when I returned back to the U.S. after several years of feeding my family with market food, and meeting the farmers who would come to area restaurants, and the fisherman who would bring fish from the Mediterranean to our back door.  These experiences helped me as a young human being to discover what my cuisine was going to say.  I felt excited to carry the message of this connectedness and these types of practices in my food.

When I came back to the U.S. in the early 90s, the Farm to Table movement was in its infancy. There was this groundswell having to do with our local product and what we’re doing with it here. Before I even built a menu, I would travel around to get to know and build relationships with farmers, fishermen and cheese makers. I wanted to build relationships with these artisans, and to be an advocate for sustainable food systems of the regions I happen to be in. We as chefs are responsible for promoting and working with regional products, almost as a mandate, highlighting farmers and growers from that region.  Your profession is a vehicle to share who you are with other people. There’s is no escaping it now.  Your profession is an intrical part of your life’s work a stamp on who you are. It’s our responsibility to tell that story and leave a legacy for the young, upcoming professionals who can carry on the message.

C.C. What about the history and progress of your current business? You’ve had a lot of success recently!
R.B. We had an interesting start! Cedarbrook Lodge and Copperleaf Restaurant is an amazing evolution, built initially by the folks at Washington Mutual and inherited by a local management company, Coastal Hotels, who empowered us to turn it into a fully sustainable, urban property with a small, cutting edge restaurant serving regional, farm-to-table, seasonal cuisine. 18 acres, 10 acres of restored wetlands. 104 rooms, 1/4 acre of chef’s garden. We grow everything from scarlet running beans to lemon verbena to stevia.  We have our own mushroom inoculation area and a water purification system stemming from that. We do on-site composting.  We recycle in the kitchen – grease goes to green energy company to be made into fuel. We do soil management.

On the farm making goat cheese

It’s an interesting model – a green initiative, which has had lots of momentum lately. The room amenitites are all green certified. The architecture is well-crafted with natural, sustainable woods. We inherited it in September of 2009.  Yogi, the president of our management company, asked us to come up with a concept. Mark Bodinet, my chef, and I have been working on it since the beginning and have had a working relationship since 2000. Loyalty is important to success. Cedarbrook has been a fun project for us to work on together and has been very rewarding. It’s allowed me the freedom to be an advocate, and develop new projects with my other business, the West Coast Kitchen, LLC (focusing on sustainable food concepts) plus the opportunity to sit on several boards. It’s resulted in a higher awareness, and the opportunity to better understand how to use my own personal relationships with others to benefit our regional food systems.

C.C.: What is the biggest challenge to building a sustainable business?  What tools/tips do you have overcome those challenges?
R.B.: I think it may be getting past the “it can’t be done” mentality in mainstream hospitality paradigms that are inherent in our industry.  The thought that responsible sustainable practice that benefit our guest, communities and our planet can’t be done without excessive costs associated with it.  It’s taking the first step in any number of directions – that’s the most important element. NIKE says, ‘just do it’. It’s really as simple as that. Find one thing that you can tell yourself to ‘just do’. My focus is on a huge industry – hospitality – and how these resources can be managed to leave lower carbon footprints or run more sustainably. For me, it started with understanding the scope of ways in which I could contribute and then deciding which ones fit within my business model.  Once that awareness is made by the business owner, it’s about doing one thing that will contribute in one of these areas.  It starts with willingness inside to give back to what was so freely given us!

CA: The amazing Bon Appetit Management Company is the first up to bat for our member news roundup this week and they really hit it out of the park. The Market Cafe at the University of San Francisco was just profiled in Civil Eats as a college cafeteria serving up healthy, local and organic food to the hungry student body. Bon Appetit works with USF and over two dozen other universities nationwide, helping them to embrace sustainability in their culinary practices. Read the whole article here.

NC: Next up, we have Chefs Collaborative Board Member, Tom Philpott, updating us on the state of the Food Safety Modernization Act from his post at Grist.org. With the opening line, “Like a fallen eater rising from the mat after a nasty case of food poisoning, the food safety bill staggered back to life yesterday”, let’s face it, Tom Philpott makes observing food policy not only necessary, but fun.

MA: Executive Chef Jeremy Sewall of Lineage Restaurant and Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks wowed a couple of diners from out of town this past weekend.  The space alone is gorgeous.. and then you get to the food.

KY: CC board Member Chef Bob Perry of the College of Agriculture at the University of Kentucky wants to put an event on your radar.  Jerry R. Dewitt, a nationally known sustainable agriculture speaker will be giving the keynote address at UK’s faculty convocation, “The Farms and Food System of the Future: Exploring Opportunities in Research, Education and Extension.” The talk will take place this coming Monday, December 13th, at 4:00 p.m. More details here.

Stay tuned for Alida’s post on the future of the RAFT program, coming up on Monday, as well as December’s FreshNet, featuring a Member Spotlight with Seattle-based chef Roy Breiman, of Cedarbrook Lodge.

Want to see your organization listed here?  E-mail a link to your blog or Facebook page to jen@chefscollaborative.org, or tweet at @ChefsCollab.

Chefs Collaborative would like to welcome some of our newest members – Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot – the brains and creative force behind “Ideas in Food“, “a blog, a book, and culinary consulting business.” They were kind enough to offer up their “5 Factors Shaping Creativity in the Kitchen” for your viewing pleasure on this Wednesday. How do you engage and encourage your own creative culinary processes?

Ideas in Food: Since our Harvard lecture was not filmed, we wanted to share our handout so you can get a sense of what we talked about. The class was on science, technology and creativity and we used pasta as the vehicle for our discussion. We brought the new pasta extruder to demonstrate how an understanding of science combined with technology can open doors to creativity by allowing us to accomplish things that wouldn’t be possible without them. Below is a short video the pasta machine extruding and cutting chestnut noodles.

1. Inspiration: observing and absorbing the world around you, asking questions, maintaining a sense of wonder.
- Finding answers is easy, finding the right questions is the true challenge.

-Mistakes are just steps along the path to success.

-Understanding history allows us to change the future.

-Finding the hidden links between ideas allows us to build a chain of development.

-Recording ideas allows us to have access to earlier inspirations and use them in the future.

-Exercise your brain by exploring new interests and ideas to keep your mind flexible.

-Allow for the cross-pollination of ideas, we get new perspectives and inspirations when we share ideas with others.

-Cyclical pleasures, enjoy the different seasons of any ingredient/idea and celebrate each new ending and beginning.

-Find balance between science and nature, if you can make them work together you can do anything.

-Juxtapose flavors, temperatures, textures, aromas so that each dish is a constantly changing experience that engages the diner and keeps them involved and excited in a meal.

-Match disparate ingredients. Don’t be afraid of trying unconventional pairings. You never know what will happen or how good something can be until you try it.

-Understand and identify relationships. Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are all part of the same family and go well together.

2. Flexibility: the ability to change perspectives on a dime. Looking at ideas backwards, forwards and upside-down. Separation of ego and invention: understanding that you will not necessarily invent the big idea but having the ability to identify it and extrapolate it will be more important than being the person who creates it.

-Sharing ideas leads to new perspectives, which in turn leads to more ideas to be embraced and shared anew.

-Build a repertoire of techniques and ideas. Have confidence in your creations and own them. Just because they may have sprung from someone else’s inspiration doesn’t detract from your own evolution.

-Organize your ideas because it will make it easier to access them and utilize your creativity.

-Choose your goal. Decide what you want to work on or work with and explore it to the best of your ability.

-Water is always available. It can be used to dilute flavor to make it approachable, like a splash in your glass of scotch or it can be used to change textures, like rehydrating freeze dried fruit. It’s also important to know when not to use water because you want to add flavor instead of subtract.

-Know when to close the door. Sometimes you’re just wasting time. If a dish isn’t working, know when to walk away and try something completely different.

-Realize that most mysteries are lack of knowledge.

-Use your subconscious. Pay attention to random thoughts and dreams.

3. Motivation: the desire to create must be stronger than fear of failure. Throwing spaghetti on the wall knowing that you can always clean up the mess later.

-Creativity is an attitude. View life as an explorer looking for opportunities and relationships, pay attention to small details and occasionally step back to see the big picture.

-Every finish line is also a starting point.

-Know your own taste and establish a clear voice.

-Allow the ingredients to inspire you.

-Pay attention to sensory experiences. Taste and memory are intertwined and certain textures and flavors resonate with certain populations. Utilize sensations to increase flavor and improve the dining experience.

-Enjoy the moment. Food peaks quickly and then deteriorates.

-Spontaneity is facilitated by constant rehearsal of skill sets. Ability allows for creativity.

-Every “overnight” success is the result of hard work.

-Structure allows for creativity. Having too many options can be paralyzing. Embrace parameters because they can actually allow for more creativity.

4. Adaptation: the ability to learn from your mistakes, successes and all of the bumps in the road on the way.

-Focus your energy. It’s easy to be distracted by ideas and lose your way. Jot down new ideas but always keep the end goal in mind.

-Establish your own set of rules to work by but don’t be afraid to change them if the situation calls for flexibility.

-Many times the smallest detail can affect the overall outcome. Calibration can make a big difference.

-Realize that there is always a right and wrong in cooking that it is determined by your standards. You choose what is right for you.

-Keep your audience in mind when composing a dish. Nobody cooks in a vacuum.

-Science can be art and vice versa. It all depends on your perspective.

-Realize that the description can be as important as the execution.

-Draw on past experiences and extrapolate.

-Don’t just balance flavors on your tongue, use you nose and balance your aromas.

-Take advantage of your resources and use them whenever you can. They will only make you better.

5. Refinement (Editing): Knowing when to say when. Utilizing critical examination to determine when a preparation is at its peak, when a dish is done, when a technique works perfectly and when you need to do more. Being able to trim the fat and sharpen the edged to reveal the hidden treasure its best advantage.

-Have a clear goal. Focus on delicious and always keep it in the back of your mind.

-Have a sense of urgency to move you forward. Use your energy wisely and don’t spin your wheels if you can avoid it.

-Are your components working together or struggling against one another? Everything on a plate should taste good, eaten alone or together.

-Explore all your options and then narrow them down. Too much is too much.

-Subtlety is underappreciated. Big bold flavors are wonderful but so is finesse.

-Start with the best raw materials available and do your best not to screw them up.

-When using a filter remember that it produces two sets of ingredients that you can use.

-Trim the fat and remove any extraneous details that simply add noise to the plate.

Here is part two of Jon Rowley’s fish handling 101.  According to Jon, “although local, plentiful and sustainable, bluefish don’t appear on many menus in New England.” Read on to find out why, and how to handle them – and other fish – for maximum flavor.

The flavor, texture and “mouthfeel” of a fish depends on how it is handled on deck the first three hours out of the water. Rarely is there an opportunity to demonstrate how it all works.

When I learned Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish, and I would both be on the program at the Chefs Collaborative Summit in Boston, I proposed we organize a charter fishing field trip out of Boston prior. It would be an opportunity to show chefs the handling-for-best-flavor steps as fish came aboard. An ardent fisherman since childhood, Paul was right on it making arrangements with Neponset Sport Fishing Charters for the 38-foot Blue Moon II, licensed for 6, which meant four open spots in addition to Paul and I. Leigh Belanger, the Chefs Collaborative Program Director, recruited Board members Peter Hoffman, owner of Savoy and Back 40 restaurants in Manhattan, Amy Bodiker, an organic farming consultant from Cleveland, Robin Schempp, owner of Right Stuff in Vermont and Bruce Sherman, chef-owner of North Pond restaurant in Chicago. A great group.

I worked out with skipper Jim Maloney how we wanted to use the opportunity to demonstrate the handling steps from hook to plate to produce the best flavor. We would stun, bleed, dress, rinse and ice pre-rigor. A few days later, the fish would be prepared for the Chefs Collaborative post-conference National Board dinner by Michael Leviton at four-star Lumiere…a good opportunity to see and taste the results.

Click here to read the rest of this post on Jon Rowley’s blog. While you’re at it, you can also follow him on Twitter!

Left to right: Jon Rowley, Robin Schempp, Peter Hoffman, Peter Greenberg, Bruce Sherman, Amy Bodiker (kneeling)

This week, Boulder-based Chefs Collaborative Board Member, Sylvia Tawse, leads off, along with long-time member Hugo Matheson. These two are huge supporters of healthier food for kids in their community, and are helping to fuel the effort with their respective businesses, Fresh Ideas Group and The Kitchen restaurant. Read about their contributions here.

Next up to bat we have Board Member, Tom Philpott, with his coverage of the Food Safety Modernization Act.  See what he has to say from beginning to… end?

Also, here’s a review of Chef Jason Bond’s new Cambridge restaurant, Bondir.  And is that Chef Mary Reilly in the background?

Stay tuned for next week’s news in the sustainable food realm!  Meanwhile, revel in these trends for 2011 as predicted by 1,500 chefs.  Sustainability and locally-sourced ingredients are at the top of the list!

It’s December already (how did that happen?!), and while roasted holiday duck may be first and foremost on everyone’s minds, let’s not forget another type of duck.  Over the past several days, the Lame Duck Congress has been busy addressing some very important issues in the sustainable food world. A quick recap:

Food Safety Modernization Act: This historic overhaul of our nation’s clearly broken food safety system passed the Senate on November 30. The bill passed by a large margin of 73 to 25, with solid bipartisan support.  The bill strengthens the oversight powers of the FDA, as well as the ability to recall tainted foods quickly.  It also includes an amendment that exempts small farms who sell most of their products locally.   To learn more, check out Civil Eats: Senate passes historic food safety bill. Now what? and the New York Times: Senate passes sweeping law on food safety.

Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) Act: The House is scheduled to vote on this bill today, December 1. The  $4.5 billion bill seeks to increase funding for school lunch and also improve the nutritional standards.  With over 17 million children experiencing food insecurity, this bill is seen as an important tool in alleviating child hunger. It has been somewhat controversial because the funding comes from cutting SNAP benefits (food stamps), but many sustainable-food organizations are supporting the bill while continuing to raise concern about the funding. UPDATE, 12/2: The House just passed the Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill!

Black Farmers Legislation: Yesterday, November 30, the House gave final approval by a wide majority for  a bill that will provide over $4.5 billion in discrimination claims brought forth by African American and Native American farmers. The bill compensates farmers who were denied or cheated out of assistance from the USDA.