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| Genesis Growers |
Four or five times a year, just when the season is at its brightest (or darkest, really, on that February day when we have to look, like, real deep at the turnips), we decide to create a totally vegetarian Farm Dinner. Now, if you didn't know, we offer a tasting menu every night of the week of vegetarian cooking — six courses, four of them savory, one cheese, one sweet — which give guests a chance to see what we can do with the season's finest. But creating three new dishes all at once takes a different level of imagination.
We like to imagine repetition and mimicry in food. Things becoming one another. Like when a flavor in a mid-winter apple just happens to mirror the flavor of a slice of turnip dressed with honey, nutmeg, and a splash of lemon; when the shape of a dumpling just happens to look like a scallop, or a new potato, or a heart of palm.
Last year we did a spaghetti squash salad where we shredded the meat of the squash and spread it flat on the plate in a crazed shredded yellow nest. We loved the way the squash swirled and turned, how it hid the other ingredients on the plate and made the act of eating it a discovery.
So, the nest, we thought. Let's make another nest.
This week at the market, Vicki from Genesis Growers is offering her tender haricot verts — the fancy tender thin cousins of the green bean. Our idea (if it works!) is to turn those into a nest of green, by cutting them lengthwise into svelte, twig-like patterns, with little surprises "nestled" within. Bright, juicy tiny cherry tomatoes, or ground cherries, or slices of plum. Roasted pepper, maybe cheese. We don't know yet because as I'm writing this, it's Wednesday, we've only been back from the market for an hour or two, and the idea is new, fresh, unformed — just a little egg waiting for something to emerge.
— Jason Hammel
Walk-ins are always welcome!
In addition to the Farm Dinner menu, our Café and Specials menus are also available on
Monday evenings.
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