Century

Over twelve years have passed since the first time that I walked into a restaurant kitchen and they have all been progressively more interesting. Fledgling jitters gave way to youthful excitement in the earlier years. Those followed by an unwarranted arrogance which thankfully was slapped out of me by a great mentor. A man I will never be able to repay for the stern but gentle hand he used in educating me, and giving me a centered confidence only found in hard work. Shortly after being "schooled" I partook in an endeavor that would scare me shitless, still to this day I have never felt more fear in a kitchen than what the talented staff at Tribute placed inside me. After Tribute a brief stay in Las Vegas lead me to Michael Symon's Lola, and eventually to competing on Iron Chef America with him. Currently my home is in Washington and at The Herbfarm.

Now that I have crammed over a decade of my life into seven sentences, I will get to the point. To this point in my career the task of deciding the "100 mile" dinner menu, was one of the most difficult culinary specific jobs I have ever experienced. In all other menu planning ventures, I have gone in with the mind set of "What can we do?". This same question would become far more restrictive than ever, because most of the answers were "Nope, we can't do that".

Bread service had to be based on wild yeast only or unleavened breads all together. Also the flour we sourced had to be grown and milled with the 100 mile radius. The flour we used for the entire menu was from Nash's Organic Farm on the Olympic Peninsula. We went with a hard red wheat and a soft pastry flour for our menu. The hard red was used for one of our sourdoughs and was flat out delicious. The entire germ was ground into the flour which imparted a natural sweetness that makes me want a slice while typing.

Gluten free breads this week were interesting to say the least, and probably one of the single biggest challenges ("what the hell am I gonna do") of the entire menu. Often Rice flour, sorghum, or other non local flours are used to make up the bulk of non-gluten breads. As those were not an option, I decided to fall back on my good friend Mr. Potato. Not only does it share a slight resemblance to myself, but it also is a multifaceted jack of all trades in the kitchen. Two of the more interesting foods were gougeres from russet potato "pate au choux", and blue potato biscuits.One dinner service the blue potatoes also found their way into one of our sourdoughs for standard bread service. All of the potatoes used in bread service and anywhere else on the menu came straight from our farm a couple of miles down the river (that sentence was for legal purposes or at least it sounded like it).


I was told the Venturi Shoulze Vineyard on Vancouver Island makes a balsamic vinegar, but really Canadian balsamic? My first thought is that it must have notes of maple syrup, hockey puck rubber, and polite disposition. Then I tasted it, and thought "I am an ass". The stuff is OUTSTANDING! The nuances of all of the different barrels and woods come through so clear and clean, yet offer an awesome depth of flavor. So I took the easy way out on this one, and just kept things simple and made a sorbet with it. Along with the sorbet we served raspberries fresh from the farm vines and a jam made from heirloom tomatoes scented with rose geranium. As one regular taster noted, "A small bite, JAMpacked with flavor" pun intended.

Dessert number two found me breaking a promise that I had made to myself years ago. I promised that I would never have cake and butter cream on any of my menus, clearly I forgot how good baked goods with butter on them were. Though I would like to think that this one was no shortcut, as at this point all leavening agents were out the window. I wanted to make a cake that had some substance, some density, but that is a problem with just whipped whites. They do not have the strength to hold up to the shredded sugar beet and zucchini I wanted to use. So I thought and thought. Then went home and had a drink on my couch, and thought some more.

I decided to use a pate de bombe, a whipped whole egg mixture cooked and fortified with hot sugar. I figured the structure that the hot sugar provided would give me time to get it into the oven without losing air and avoid deflation while baking. The cake came out very moist and had a nice earthy note to it from the sugar beets. Pressed between the layers is a crème fraiche butter cream, which is probably closer to a crème fraiche mousse with butter in it. Overall I was satisfied with how it came out, defiantly distinctive. Its plated "racing stripe" style with goat's milk and bay leaf ice cream. The caramel sauce is scented with madrona, a native tree bark (think pipe tobacco in a cedar sauna, now think of it in a good way…). Simple black berries that were baked in a 350 convection oven for only 3 minutes were a minor revelation. They never reached the point of bursting but became softer, and their perfume was more pronounced than ever.

Petite fours were a bit more rustic than usual, due to the lack of chocolate, pectin, glucose, gelatin…. I am really getting sick of telling you about what we did not have at this point, and I am sure you are tired of hearing it. So here is what we did make for petite fours. Puget Summer Strawberry Fruit Leather, Rye-Rosemary Shortbread, Hazelnut Meringue Cookies, Frosted Wild Blue Berries, Yarrow Caramel.
One more week of the menu still remains, and I am sure by the end of it things will change. However I feel satisfied with where it began.

Day 1 of the "hundered"

Today was the first day of service for our 100 mile dinner, and it unveiled itself to be one of the most difficult culinary adventures I have partaken in. Ok finding produce and proteins is difficult enough, but let me put this into pastry technique terms...

Ingredients I cannot use: Baking Powder, Baking Soda, Instant Yeast, Gelatin, Agar, Xanthan, any grains Not milled locally, Sorbet Stabilizer, Ice Cream Stabilizer, Pectin, Citric Acid, Tartaric Acid, any fancy hydrocolloids of any kind.

I made a pate a bombe for a cake, not a mousse, a cake!

The Herbfarm Ingredients = 2π*100miles

The upcoming menu is our annual 100 mile dinner. Every bit of everything to be ingested and enjoyed by our guests must be found with in a 100 mile radius. Intimidating to say the least.

"Alex what are;" Rathbone, Hayden, Marceaux, Badley, Wolverton, of Caesarea, Saint's Cathedral, and Racuk.

Thai, Opal, Sweet, Bush, Lime, Lemon, Cinnamon, and Genovese were the stars of this week's menu. They were much easier to get onto the menu and into dishes, than the eight Basils mentioned in the title. Basil is not really a difficult reach for desserts, so we could really have fun with it. Its great perfume and clove like bite allow it to standout in a dish, while still playing well with others.


Not so long ago I recall competing on an episode of Iron Chef America in which basil was the secret ingredient. While I can't speak for Chef Clayton or Chef Symon, in my opinion it was one of our most difficult wins. Basil doesn't want to play nice, it gives up easy, doesn't respond well to heat, and bitches and moans if it doesn't get its way. While each of these basils have a common thread in base aroma, they have their own personality and all want to be heard. It's like a game of Pictionary at a sorority party.

Lucky for us Bill and Sally and the rest of the crew on our farm (all of whom do a fantastic job and we as chefs are beyond fortunate to work with), are bringing in a lot of beautiful produce. The one thing about gorgeous produce is you don't have to do much to it, just treat it well and with respect. It just so happens that basil likes the same attention, and last second usage. I posted recently about the "Tomato Patch" dish that Ben devised, a dish that was easy to understand, fun to eat, and beautiful.

The desserts for this menu were a mixture of something new for me, and one that was very familiar. The latter of which I'm sure my previous sous chef Liz (the current pastry chef of Lola, and doing a damn fine job) would be able to pick out of a lineup of twenty desserts.

The "pre" dessert evolved from an initial sorbet course utilizing Cinnamon Basil, into a tribute to The Herbfarm and to a reputation it had developed long before I was there. If it were not for such a reputation I may not be here now. It was a great honor to take note of a dessert tradition here and usher it into a new form for a new menu. Cinnamon Basil ice cream is a big deal around these parts, and I believe it found its way onto the original "Basil Banquet" menu in the form of an ice cream cone. I wanted to utilized this tradition, but fashion it in a way that would really complete a composed dessert. What's the next of kin to an Ice Cream cone? Well as any well versed 10 year old ice cream aficionado would tell you, an ice cream sandwich of course.

I didn't express this to any of my co-workers, but I was beyond happy with this dish. There is more of my childhood in this two ounce dessert than a chapter of writing could do justice. Seeing my father come in from the garden with zucs bigger than I was and remembering that my mother's favorite fruit is blueberry. Knowing that I always hated cake for my birthday, but loved ice cream, so why not have two options! And then there are the peaches, and I'm not telling you the story about them….

I love how much emotion can be evoked from food. Today I snagged a bite of a pork terrine that was served with our fifth course, and it sent me spinning back to my Grandma Barrett"s breakfast table. Sitting there with my Grandpa the scent of coffee in the air, and the taste of steel cut oats with chopped ham hock in it. The three of us sitting at a table watching the early morning news, deciding if it was a good day for me to go for a ride on the golf cart. Here I am in one of America's great restaurants choking back tears, all because of a fucking pork terrine. For so many years I said "It's not like we are saving lives here", and would scoff to myself. I'm now realizing we my just have the power to help someone remember there life, and I'll be damned if that is not just as important.


Damn... that was heavy.


Anyway on to the next dessert, and this one doesn't have the slightest bit to do with my past. It's steeped in basic pastry technique, and a new flavor combination (at least for me). On the last menu we did a sorrel ganache that I was excited to try, and really pleased with the results. So on this menu I decided to use lime basil in conjunction with the sorrel, and pair it with dark chocolate. The acid from the sorrel brightened the dish, and added a lovely green flavor. Toward the end of the menu the dish was garnished with wild trailing blackberries, which could possibly be the origin of the flavor "blue". They are astonishing little bursts of flavor, and I am so happy they have found their way into my pastry flavor palette. The plate was capped off with a touch of sorrel honey (from our own hives) as well.



Take home treats and mignardises where fun as well this week. Strawberry- Rose Geranium macaroons, cupcakes (financier), cinnamon basil caramels, and foccacia (that I partook in way too much of) made my list of favorites.

You Say...

Its not my dish, in fact I had nothing to do with this one. Ben Smart, a sous chef, cleverly put together a "Tomato Patch" for our basil banquet menu. While his inspirations were many, the dish is all his own.

"The Tomato Patch"
Heirloom tomatoes in four preparations: Jam, Confit, Partially Dehydrated, Blanched
Rye "Soil", Crispy Tomato Leaf, Olive Oil Powder, House Made Goat Cheese, Bush Basil, Fennel Flowers.

The Wright Way

"Where do you find inspiration" is a question that chefs are often asked, and I am sure that the variations in answers are as expansive as the question itself. I have always been of the mindset you do not find inspiration, it finds you. If you are in the proper open mindset anything can inspire. Flavors, cultures, other chefs, books, blogs, pictures, smells, all are obvious ones. The wind, landscape, soil, emotion, nature, a long run, your childhood, architecture, are not so obvious.

The last on there, architecture, has led me to an eternal man crush. A year and a half ago I visited Falling Water in Western Pennsylvania, from that point the visual style of my desserts has changed. The linear architecture paired with organic beauty reminded me so much of a perfectly plated dessert, I have still not able turned away from it. This inspiration is not to make light of the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright, but to praise it for being able to cross such drastic borders.

Thanks Frank.