La Garniture

We’ve come a long way since the days when garnishing a dish meant little more than throwing a bit of commercial parsley and a few superfluous vegetables on the plate, that quickly got pushed to one side. These days thoughtful chefs like Ryan have transformed our very notion of garnish, expanding the variety, colors and textures of the things they reach for in those last moments before a dish heads out to the dining room. To my mind, even the word is moribund ~ garnish has the potential to do a hell of a lot more than decorate a dish like a few accent pillows. They are the subtle but dramatic finishing pieces to a complex flavor puzzle a chef begins to fit together with initial conception of the dish.

Consider the steps: raw ingredients are rubbed, cured, infused, marinated and seasoned before the cooking process bastes, sautés, caramelizes, bakes, flambés, glazes, braises, grills, barbeques or smokes in yet more flavors. As food is plated the element that arguably demands the most finesse, (and in fine dining restaurants has its very own chef ) the final sauce, is added. Only after all these steps are completed does a chef reach for final finishing flavors which, if he isn't careful, can misrepresent or throw the complexity of the entire dish out the window. When I asked what flavors and textures he might look for in a garnish Ryan reeled off, “sharp, sweet, tart, viscous, buttery, floral, creamy, caramel, crunchy, earthy, herbal” adding he includes vinaigrettes as well.

If you’ve dined at the Barn over the past few weeks you will recognize most of the elements photographed here which were used to garnish our plates one day last week; chances are if you come in next week they will have been replaced. For restaurants like ours that tout their farm to table pedigree, garniture offers a not-to-be-missed opportunity to showcase what’s local, seasonal and freshest. Towards this end we devote three raised beds here at the Barn just for finishing. In addition to these edible flowers and herbs which Chef uses raw or infuses in oil and a range of vinegars, our farmer partners grow a variety of tiny vegetables and greens he may pickle or lightly dress. And let's not forget root vegetables which can be deep fried for a sprinkling of chips...once you see the potential of garnish, the list just keeps on growing.

Grown or foraged or bought, finishing flavors are an essential, if ephemeral, piece to dining you owe it to yourself to explore. Whatever you call them.

This Week!

Expectations are running high for this week's first National Heirloom Expo ~ with good reason. The time is right for a truly meaningful countywide event with a focus on seeds, farming and superlative products. The Expo starts Tuesday and runs through Thursday at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds. Barndiva will be participating in the chef demonstrations (Ryan will be there today at 2, as well as Alex from Mix Gardens), and there will be scintillating panel discussions with food savants from around the country, in addition to keynotes speakers including Alice Waters and Dr. Vandana Shiva. If you've never heard Dr. Shiva (chances are you've never even heard OF her) don't miss this opportunity to experience this Nobel worthy woman who speaks truth to power about the future of food.

Without a doubt one of the more interesting groups coming to the Expo are the folks from Native Seed/SEARCH, a seed saving educational non-profit that has been going strong in Arizona for over two decades. Native Seed's Bill McDorman will be speaking on Tuesday at 3, directly after Ryan's demo, and will also participate in an important panel Thursday called Seeds of Sustainability.

On Friday morning Studio Barndiva will host a benefit for the Native Seed/SEARCH organization with an incredible brunch starting at 11 using Native Seed products. Our pastry chef Octavio will be making muffins with their Senoran White Wheat, while Ryan and the gang will serve up our infamous Huevos Rancheros with Early Bird Eggs, heirloom salsa and Native Seed Tepary Beans. Bloody Marys, made with our tomatoes and their rare Native Seed spices will (quite literally) kick off the meal, after which there will be a chance to talk with Bill and his dynamic wife Belle Starr and many other seedsmen and women who were at the Expo and are coming for a last chance to compare notes. This is a not-to-be-missed event folks, with a great meal, in support of a wonderful organization. It just doesn't get any better.

To book a place at the table, call Barndiva at 707 431 0100.

See you there! See you here! Details below.

Sonoma Wine Country Weekend

We sent two of our biggest diva's ~ Isabel and Eric ~ to Taste of Sonoma a week ago to sing our song to a sold out crowd of 3,000. Good thing that in addition to our compressed watermelon + lemon verbena we also served up Barndiva Farm's Heirloom green figs and Gravenstein Apples ~ these terrior hunters were hungry, and not just for information. Taste is a great event ~ at the gorgeous MacMurray Ranch ~ in which to get a comprehensive overview of the wines produced across the county. We were in the Dry Creek Valley tent, but we couldn't help noticing while visiting friends in the other tents that there was decidedly less food this year. What's up, Chefs? We are busy as all get out this time of year but we made the time and are really glad we did. Not counting Pigs n' Pinot ~ which is one varietal and Healdsburg centric ~ Honor Comfort and the gang throw the most convivial wine event of the summer.

All text Jil Hales. All photos Jil Hales (unless otherwise noted)

(originally posted April 14, 2010)

Our first show in the new Studio will be photographer Wil Edwards’ Art of the Rind, a series of seemingly abstract, deeply saturated color images that if you didn’t know what they were, would put you more in mind of Salvador Dalí than smoky Gouda.

Going through Wil’s portfolio this week for a B&W series that will run concurrently in the restaurant, I happened upon some strong shots of animal carcasses he had not shown me before. Their formal elegance was reminiscent of the great photographer Atget. Wil captured the sinuous and quite beautiful line of the hollowed out bodies in a truthful way, one that did not objectify the animal so much as respectfully document its life. There is, after all, a long history of artists using the dead as models and inspiration: Michelangelo, da Vinci, Delacroix.

Only his mother liked them, Wil told me. Probably not a good idea to put them in the show. Did he like them? Yes, he did. A great deal. Still, he worried about offending people, turning them off.

I’m usually not drawn to art that takes its impetus in empty provocation, but showing these elegiac images isn't touting abattoir chic. Maybe its time we asked what's up with passionate omnivores who can romanticize the animals they eat while they are frolicking in the field, but still find methods of killing and butchering a squeamish subject. A reality check is important now and again, if you eat meat.

The majority of the Big Mac eating world is only dimly aware of the current national conversation about the dangers of factory farming which books like Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals and films like Food First have rightly raised. Thats cool. It will come. After that, unless you refrain from eating animal proteins on moral grounds, knowing the animals you eat lived healthy lives and were killed humanely can make a consequential difference to your appetite and the way you choose to satisfy it. One of the most important goals of Fork & Shovel ~ the sustainable farmers and chefs collaborative we worked to get started two years ago~ was to make it easier for diners in our restaurants to get honest answers when they ask the question ~ “where does this food come from?”

The fact that ethical ranching represents less than 2% of the animal proteins served to the American public does not negate the paradigm we are supporting here in our food shed with groups like Fork & Shovel and our thriving Farmers Markets. Quite the opposite.

If you haven't read Temple Grandin, or seen the TV film with Claire Danes about her, do one or the other, this is fascinating stuff. I'm of the opinion it helps to look death in the face and honor it, and animals give us that chance, in addition to feeding us. Most Americans can't stop gorging themselves on endless images that celebrate gratuitous violence but don't want to know how the animals they eat are being slaughtered. Major disconnect, no?

I take heart that the recent butchery class at Relish was such a huge success. More and more eaters (and it usually follows, good cooks) are beginning to accept the fact that you can't talk about following the food chain all the way back to the animal in a field without also accommodating the icky bits that happen in the abattoir.

On Friday when we arrived at the farm for the weekend we found we had no water in the house ~ our entire 200 gallon storage tank was empty. We did what we could to figure out the problem but had to switch locations for dinner we had planned with our friends, Tim and Karen, of Apple Farm fame, who live just down the road. We got to their place just as the sun was setting. As we pulled in I saw Sophia, their daughter, at the end of a row of blooming apple trees, setting off on her evening rounds to check on and feed the animals.

The Philo Apple Farm raises only enough animals to eat and serve to their guests. What Karen learned at the knee of her Mum, Sally, owner/chef of the original French Laundry, about food and where it comes from can't be put in a book (unless they choose to write one. Which I wish they would). When Charlie Palmer gifted us a whole 'leftover' pig from his Pigs n' Pinot a few years back,it was Karen I called to walk me through butchering it. I have never been squeamish, but even I was surprised by how much satisfaction I got from holding the animal and guiding the knife as it cut clean deep channels in the layers of flesh. That same feeling of connection came back when I viewed Wil's photographs this week.

The light was fading as we tended to Sophia’s horses and moved onto the pigs, who are kept in pens that are moved around the orchards for grazing and fertilizing ~ the heart of bio dynamic farming. Animals have a crucial role to play in this family’s life that goes beyond feeding them. In the case of the magnificent Nordic draft horses Sophia is training ~ they are partners in her life’s journey. What occurred to me traipsing through the gloaming was how all of us ~ Geoff, Sophia and I, the pigs, goats, horses, dogs, & chickens ~ were all sharing the same evening. Hunger and the approaching dark had triggered in us similar concerns. Whether we were able to acknowledge it or not, we were in it together, dependent on each other, on what felt like a pretty profound level.