When Jordan Rosas took over our kitchens the country was teetering towards a total lockdown. Then we fell. It’s a hell of a thing for a chef to take the leap and move from a big city like Los Angeles to a small rural community in the best of times, even to a town as food savvy as Healdsburg. To do so at the start of a worldwide pandemic was perhaps a bit mad. He had two kitchens to reorganize, existing staff to train to a more exacting standard, an unfamiliar farming community with dozens of important players to get to know. Oh, and he almost immediately had to pivot to a To-Go menu which neither he, nor Barndiva, had ever offered before. So yes, a bit mad.
Or absolutely brilliant. He landed in a beautiful landscape, a line out of a novel, where the distance he has to travel to meet farmers and artisan purveyors - a huge impetus for his move in the first place - is a few minute’s drive if he doesn’t feel like biking it. He has our full support to challenge himself creatively, which he thrives upon. For Jordan, responsible sourcing and foraging don’t just play out in wonderful flavor combinations or beautiful plating. A true advocate of root to stem cooking he is committed to addressing the least sexy but most sagacious component of farm to table sustainability: honor the soil by making the fullest use of your ingredients. Waste nothing.
Everyday is a roller coaster in our industry right now; literally no one operating in hospitality can project the future, much less next month or week. There is the constant worry about keeping staff healthy, a myriad of new safety protocols that must be rigorously followed. Trying to keep the joy in cooking present in a time of such great global anxiety would be daunting for the most experienced chef, yet somehow this remarkable young man has pulled off this transition with aplomb. It is a testament to his character, as much as his considerable talent.
It helps that we have put in extraordinary safety measures and creative ways to continue to engage with guests, even with our limited contact safe distance dining. But Jordan’s Garden Dining menus are some of the finest dishes we’ve ever served. And he’s just getting started.
We will get better at documenting his process, but here are a few dishes to whet your appetite.
Above is White Bass with heirloom Nye Ranch tomatoes, first of the season Barndiva Farm Gravenstein apples and anise hyssop. The Bass is brined in tomato water served with a sauce of tomato, ginger, lemongrass, fish sauce and kaffir lime. The Gravs are put to good use in an apple purée with brown butter, coriander, and our first generation of apple cider syrup, with a bit of raw apples for texture. A fine dusting of tomato powder and tiny aromatic leaves of anise hyssop finish the dish.
In every menu he conceives, waste is considered with remarkable creativity. Both the tomato water for the brine in this dish as well as the finishing tomato powder (dehydrated tomato skins) were ‘saved’ from the preparation of Pan con Tomaté (below). The anise hyssop is grown by Daniel Carlson at our farm in Philo.
Last week’s blog was all about figs, and here they are fresh and glazed in a Robata grilled pork loin with corn succotash and chanterelles with a pork jus finished with orange zest and lime. Everything on this beautiful plate - with the exception of our figs from Mendocino County - was sourced in Sonoma County.
Above is Hamachi Crudo with green papaya, Easter Egg radish, fermented peach, and fresh garden micro herbs. The Japanese Hamachi is ocean farmed in the southern Kansai region, lightly seasoned with lime zest, Maldon and Piment d’ville Espellete grown in Boonville a few miles from the farm. After thinly slicing the fish is drizzled with Nuoc Cham - a refined version of a classic Vietnamese dipping sauce consisting of fresh lime and orange juice, ginger, lemongrass, sugar, and fish sauce, which the green papaya has been compressed in. The fish is served with fermented Sayre Farm peach purée, Freckle Farms shaved Easter Egg radish, mint from our garden, and bolted cilantro leaves and flowers, which Jordan feels tends to have a more aggressive flavor than regular cilantro. The dish is finished with grilled Serrano Chile oil.
Nye Ranch and Red Bird Bakery and a whole lotta garlic, aged sherry vinegar, and EVOO are the deceptively simple ingredients in this perfect share starter of PAN CON TOMATÉ which captures the incandescent flavors of summer. It relies upon the quality of superb heirloom tomatoes - thank you Nye Ranch - but perfect texture here is key, the result of peeling, grating, then straining the tomatoes to separate the water from the pulp, leaving only the fullness of Mediterranean flavors to saturate the bread.
HOUSEMADE LUMACHE is a celebration of local summer squash, grilled corn, pickled ramps, Padrón peppers, house-made marinara, fresh basil. The squash is carved leaving one plane of outer skin intact which is charred for extra flavor. This is a vegan dish that does not rely on any dairy which would weigh down the pasta. Instead the lumache is finished in the pan with the sauce and a little pasta water, constant stirring to bring out out the natural starch. “Gotta treat each dish like it is going out to mamma,” Jordan says, which, in this case, it was.
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