{"id":244062,"date":"2010-12-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/slow-lane-from-tall-toque-to-straw-hat\/"},"modified":"2010-12-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T08:00:00","slug":"slow-lane-from-tall-toque-to-straw-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/slow-lane-from-tall-toque-to-straw-hat\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow Lane: From tall toque to straw hat"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brook Larious | Slow Lane<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Slow<\/a>
(Courtesy Ave 5)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ever pause to consider how far your food travels before planting it on your plate?\u00a0Put me on a several hundred-mile ride from Northern California to San Diego, or a several thousand-mile trek from Ecuador to San Diego, and I\u2019d step out of the cabin disheveled and ornery. Our food doesn\u2019t fare much better.<\/p>\n

Often picked before its prime, or out of season, food is at our mercy as most of us are not content to wait for apples in autumn or avocados in the summer. Imagine the quandary of chefs\u2014urged by demand to ignore Mother Nature\u2019s rules, bending to their customer\u2019s wants and whims. Many continue to create seasonal dishes, even if the desired ingredients aren\u2019t in season.<\/p>\n

For some food frolickers, this whole \u201ceat what you want, when you want it\u201d mentality\u2019s not cutting it. Chefs and restaurateurs across the country are beginning to grow some of their own food, harvesting it at its peak\u2014Uptown not excluded. Alas, they\u2019re not doing it in droves, for wearing the hat of a toque and a farmer is not for the faint of heart; cooking\u2014and growing\u2014for the masses can be exhausting and thankless vocations. But by focusing on good, clean produce that often travels less than the average daily commuter, adventurous chefs and restaurateurs find they\u2019re augmenting quality while cutting costs.<\/p>\n

Banker\u2019s Hill eatery and bar, Ave 5, located at 2760 Fifth Ave., is one such restaurant, where dishes are fueled, partly, by a fruit, vegetable and herb garden of its own. Co-owners and brothers Brian and Colin MacLaggan work hard to plant their own vittles, taking control (at least as much as Mother Earth and the local insect population will allow) of what they put on your plate in an economically savvy and quality boosting fashion. The MacLaggan brothers, along with their father, began tending their own garden at Ramona\u2019s Highland Valley Ranch last year. For months, executive chef Colin used the ranch\u2019s own produce in his creations at Ave 5, incorporating carrots, peppers, tomatoes, snap peas, string beans, squash and herbs in his rotating menu\u2014until the frost recently set in. Citrus and pomegranate trees are still fairing well, but the apple trees have suffered a recent bird attack. Those are the unfortunate sacrifices of farming.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the great chefs in our history grew up on a farm and chose to leave farming to become chefs, dedicating all their time into creating and cooking from the farms that they once worked,\u201d Colin said.<\/p>\n

Currently incubating in the garden are potatoes, fennel, carrots, beets, celery, squash and an abundance of herbs. As output increases, the folks at Ave 5 will reinstate their patron gifting program, leaving a basket of their produce near the door so guests can help themselves as they depart, posting on the Ave 5\u2019s Facebook page photos and stories of how they\u2019ve used it in their own dishes. Like the MacLaggan family, which finds joy in the act of growing and har vesting food together, the hope is that patrons will also cook and eat it with those they love.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brook Larious | Slow Lane Ever pause to consider how far your food travels before planting it on your plate?\u00a0Put me on a several hundred-mile ride from Northern California to San Diego, or a several thousand-mile trek from Ecuador to San Diego, and I\u2019d step out of the cabin disheveled and ornery. Our food […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1330,"featured_media":244063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Slow Lane: From tall toque to straw hat","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}