By Brook Larious | Slow Lane
Ever pause to consider how far your food travels before planting it on your plate? Put 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’d step out of the cabin disheveled and ornery. Our food doesn’t fare much better.
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—urged by demand to ignore Mother Nature’s rules, bending to their customer’s wants and whims. Many continue to create seasonal dishes, even if the desired ingredients aren’t in season.
For some food frolickers, this whole “eat what you want, when you want it” mentality’s not cutting it. Chefs and restaurateurs across the country are beginning to grow some of their own food, harvesting it at its peak—Uptown not excluded. Alas, they’re not doing it in droves, for wearing the hat of a toque and a farmer is not for the faint of heart; cooking—and growing—for 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’re augmenting quality while cutting costs.
Banker’s 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’s Highland Valley Ranch last year. For months, executive chef Colin used the ranch’s own produce in his creations at Ave 5, incorporating carrots, peppers, tomatoes, snap peas, string beans, squash and herbs in his rotating menu—until 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.
“Most 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,” Colin said.
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’s Facebook page photos and stories of how they’ve 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.
