June 2009

Wednesday, 10 June 2009

Organic Ingredients Move From Fringes to Mainstream Years ago, when I was cooking at a small French restaurant in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, I started using local and organic ingredients because they were the best ingredients I could find on the island. Product delivered from the mainland was not always in the best shape, and since deliveries came only once a week, I was hard pressed to keep my kitchen stocked with premium produce and seafood. So I turned to local suppliers. Even though I had to deal with a dozen individual suppliers instead of a single distributor, it was worth it. And eventually, I came to realize that the relationships I was establishing with farmers, fishermen and wild crafters had become the foundation of a new kind of cooking. I was only dimly aware at the time that hundreds if not thousands of other chefs were doing the same thing in small towns and big cities all over the country. These days, organic, or otherwise sustainable ingredients comprise the foundation of most fine dining menus, at least in the most interesting places, and more and more, organic and local have become the rule instead of an exception.   Recently, when I was researching this topic for a story about Maria Hines and her restaurant, Tilth, the first certified organic restaurant in Seattle, it occurred to me that the iconoclastic chefs like me who broke away from mainstream distributors to find better ingredients had become the new icons. Dishes we forged during that era paved the way for New American Cuisine. These days, new innovative techniques, combined with those local, sustainable ingredients which have become increasingly accessible to chefs, are generating better food than ever. Watch for an upcoming article on this subject in Pacific Northwest, the Sunday newsmagazine of The Seattle Times that features a recipe from James Beard Award winning chef Maria Hines of Seattle’s Tilth restaurant. Meanwhile, enjoy: Green Pea Flan with Morel Mushrooms and Pea Vines Balsamic Braised Short Ribs with Faro and Panna Cotta with Strawberries and Rose Petal Foam

 

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