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RSS FeedA few days ago, lulled into a false sense of security months earlier by my friend and Food Arts senior editor, Jim Poris, I found myself cooking for a benefit in the kitchen of The Culinary Vegetable Institute which is run by The Chef’s Garden, in Huron, Ohio, purveyor of incredibly fine and astonishingly delicious greens and other delectables that grow in soil. Seriously, you never knew salad could be so good.
The event promoted Veggie U., a program that educates children about food, what good food is and what it means, and what it means to eat well.
How we grow our food shapes the world. How we eat shapes the world. The time to begin teaching people this fundamental but oft-ignored fact is when they are kids. That’s part of what Veggie U aims to do.
I couldn’t say no to Jim. It was also a chance to meet and cook with Brad Thompson (best chef southwest last year). It’s been a long time since I cooked for strangers and I was nervous. Poris kept losing his side towel when he was doing his main dish (shad, shad roe, grits, sorel sauce), but Brad kept us in line. He’s big bald fella, former athlete, younger than me—I wouldn’t cross him. Brad cooked, among other things (such as a guinea hen and foie terrine) the best dish in my opinion—loup de mer with fried tripe:
I did a pea soup canapé 
and a fat-filled chicken-garlic sausage with eggplant caviar and basil (sausages are inherently inelegant so the trick is finding a decent way to serve them as a canapé, and this seemed to work, but the forks were too large) 
as well as black truffle risotto with braised baby radishes (top, thanks for the advice jonathan benno! [gorgeous shot removed by food arts heavies]), Poris’s duck rilletes on turnip discs [removed]
and crispy skinned pork belly. Which was awesome—not because it was my dish, but because crispy skinned pork belly is a gift from god:
Brad Thompson will soon leave Arizona and return, he thinks, to his old grounds (he worked with Boulud and Carmellini for five years at Daniel). So keep your eyes open for him, and for Veggie U, and the remarkable Chef’s Garden.
Below, Thompson, Poris, CVI chef Jonny Black, and I surround Lee Jones, the public face of Chef’s Garden and incredibly generous individual, in trademark bow tie, along with sous chefs and student apprentices.
[Note: the amazing shots for Food Arts by Keith Berr,
extraordinary photographer in Cleveland, have been removed; Food Arts
called, said they get first dibs, and threatened to break my kneecaps.
The current very nice pix are courtesy of Chef's Garden.]
Nice color on that unfortunately named “pea-soup canape” Michael. How’d you get that?
Why, oh why, did I have to bring up these pictures at 9 in the morning? Everything looks absolutely wonderful. Nice job!
What a great program to promote, although my tea-and-toast breakfast seems a little lacking now in the face of all that beautifully photographed food!
del grosso, the “chilled english pea soup with creme fraiche and mint” is straight forward big pot blanching, lot of heavily salted boiling water, shock the peas, puree with veg stock, pass through a chinois–all french laundry style. really fresh intense pea flavor.
Stunning!
Damn, Ruhlman, what do you *not* do well? I’ll bet you give a killer foot massage, too.
Ah now I understand why you suggested salted water for blanching veges in that piece you shared with me. It’s a great technique for tough skinned veges like peas. Very nice!
I knew you weren’t going to tell me that you amped up the color with spinach or ahem, chlorophyll.
I also got a kick out of the loup de mere and tripe dish. Not only is it a great combination of ingredients but the linguistic aspect is pretty damned amusing: sea wolf and cow gut/ predator and prey on the same plate.
Ah yes, pea soup is so nice. I am a big fan! Lovely food shots here indeed! Mouthwatering.
Stop, you’re making me hungry. The pea soup looked beautiful, Ruhlman.
Thank you for posting web sites that promote sustainable agriculture and local farms. I was only disappointed that I saw so few pictures of creative greens.
My friend has a huge garden and she made me a salad from about 10 edible flowers and plants I had never heard of. I was a bit scared at first, but I’ve never seen so many different colors in my life. The taste was incredible.
I would love to see more edible flowers used in dishes – and more vegetarian foods. But nonetheless, thank you for a great post. The Chef’s Garden is amazing!
Thanks for posting this. My goal is to always have my children try something new and to also appreciate where their food comes from.
We plant a little garden where they get to pick the vegetables they want to grow.
The pride on their faces when we serve dinner during the summer is priceless. Not only can they claim that they grew our food, but they help with prep and/or cooking as well.
How cool that you got to meet Lee Jones. I hope I have the same privilege one day. What wonderful work he’s been doing in the world.
Sounds like a great experience and what an awesome program. I agree, we have to get to them when they’re young. Many of the food values I have now were ones my Mom instilled in me when I was young, which went through the whole cycle of teenaged-junk-food, college-fried-food, post-college-processed food and then trying to figure out how to cook and eat good food, which has slowly led me back to my Mom’s teachings. I was lucky.
The pictures are *amazing*
This weekend. Me in the kitchen with peas. That’s where you’ll find me.
Pea soup as presented here does need an elegant name. Potage des pois anglais vert. Ah, that’s better.
Thanks for the story and the photos, Ruhlmnan. Awesome.
Delicious looking pictures, and what a great program! With childhood obesity on the rise (along with adult obesity), teaching kids how to enjoy healthy eating, and to be conscious of how their food choices affect the world around them, is more important than ever.
Oh, God, Rule-man. Crispy-skinned pork belly. I KNOW you’ve got a recipe for it somewhere . . . not in 5th, though.
Salivating (and now I HAVE to run to Momofuku’s for their Berkshire pork belly steamed buns, thanks to you . . . )
Crispy-skinned pork belly.
Wow. Just wow.
I’ve made a similar pea soup amuse and it is intense and fresh and delicious. Now I know what I’m going to have to make this weekend.
Amazing timing. I just finished the chapter on the Chino’s San Diego area “The Vegetable Shop” (in a chapter titled “Cream of the Crop”) in Jeffrey Steingarten’s “It Must Have Been Something I Ate,” and you write this entry in your blog. Good to see you’re still doing God’s work, Michael.
not to sound fan-boyish, but my parents had reservations to eat at the place I work and I was toiling over what to do in the way of a Amuse.
Your pea soup broke the mental block and I ended up doing a Cold Asparagus Soup with Creme Fraiche and White Truffle Oil.
Thanks sometimes all you need is a picture to break the block I guess.
delighted to know that this food inspires!
I can see what you mean about the forks being a little too large, but that’s certainly a novel way to present sausage as an app, and an idea which I will shamelessly borrow.
cheers!
sah wat di bi mai
Happy New Year!
Have you considered doing a book geared at children?
Oh lord that sh*t looks damn good.
Sorry but I am going to have to steal your idea of having the sausages on forks as amuses-bouches. Absolutely brilliant.
And pork belly, like wine, is proof that God exists and wants us to be happy. Droooooooooooool….
I am curious about the salt-water blanching technique, can you elaborate?
Thanks and keep up the good cooking!
Cheers!
I second proeats’ suggestion. My grandmother gave me a childrens cookbook for my 7th birthday. If I were to make a list of the formative and life-altering books I’ve read, that cookbook would be in the top 10. The recipes were ghastly–classic american “cuisine” from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s but it introduced me to the kitchen and the idea that I could have a say in what I ate. The Children of the High Fructose Cornsyrup could use that kind of empowerment.
Yesterday I finished off the week with a group of fellow professionals at a good enough French bistro in LA.
The first thing that caught my eye was that they were offering a “vegan” french onion soup. That is soooo wrong!!
Vegan anything is wrong, but that is wrong to the max. If these people have their way we’ll be drinking Rachael Ray’s ethanol mojitos with blanched edamame and tofu tapas.
Aw, why don’t you like vegan food? I was a vegetarian for 20+ years and I loved the vegan food I ate. BTW, wasn’t ruhlman’s pea soup vegan?
It’s certainly not for everyone, but it is (if you’re like, insanely vigilant)a very healty diet. It’s certainly much better for the environment.
Did you actually try the soup? I do find that the “no-chicken noodle” soup I ate tasted different but good nonetheless.
Oh my God!Pork belly! ‘nuf said.
French onion soup demands, yes demands, a hearty stock to begin with. Made from BONES, beef or chicken. That sort of leaves the Vegans outside looking in, especially after you top it with that crouton with melted gruyere.
Anything else is reprehensible.
Vegans are entitled to dine on their pretend food; just don’t try to trick me into eating it.
Okay, the crouton was humanely raised with natural yeast.
My favorite words ever are crispy-skinned pork belly. Well, crispy skinned pork is enough, to be honest.
Beautiful pea soup, am looking forward to trying to make it myself, even though I’m a cooking newbie. Your description of how to make it sounds simple enough, but I’m discovering that in my brief cooking experience “sounds simple enough” can sometimes be famous last words.
Maya, Ruhlman’s pea soup had creme fraiche, so unless it was soy creme fraiche, no, it wasn’t vegan.
Nondiregol, hmmm… not from humanely raised tofu? I’m very disillusioned now
(see, veganism makes your brain fuzzy…)
Scorcha – Argh, me maties! Foiled again!
Nice plating Ruhlman! Can’t wait to see this in FA. The Amuse-Bouche of chicken-garlic sausages look like they were to die for. Very clever.
If my pea soup looked like that I probably would eat it more often, it actually looks light! And those sausages….
chef michael ruhlman what a great blog /web site wow great photos from the farm visit what an honor to have you chef brad and jim poris of food arts here talk about a huge honor having you guys here on the farm thanks again sorry you cant make it out for the chefs summitt and food and wine event in july any of your readers interested they can certainly go to chefs garden web site or culinary vegetable institute site for more info take care farmer lee jones