We've done a bit of restaurant work over the years.
Lately, we've been fielding increasing requests for bar tops, tables, and even some chairs, especially since our first restaurant show early this year.
So, now when we run across articles like Field Report: Fresh Direction in the NY Times magazine at the end of April there's a different level of interest. Like how eating in a restaurant is never the same if you've worked in a kitchen or waited tables.
Like most concerned with sustainability issues and interested in living a more planet-friendly life, we've been encouraged by the steady growth of Slow Food, Farm to Table, and CSAs (community supported agriculture) efforts over the past two decades, and there seems to be a critical growth marker with places like Coon Rock Farm's, Eno Restaurant & Market.
There are all sorts restaurants focused on getting locally & responsibly produced menus. Some are even looking to supply their own ingredients in part - like the upcoming Breuckelen, for example. Detractors and critics of these efforts obviously point to challenges like where to source olive oil, spices or staples like rice and flour, but we think they miss the overall point that taking small steps toward a larger goal are required even if everything can't be solved at once.
Eno Restaurant & Market wants to take local production one step further by producing nearly all of its menu at Coon Rock Farms, which is only about 20 miles away. The partners at Coon Rock Farms - Jamie DeMent & Richard Holcomb - and chef Marco Shaw - formally of Fife in Portland, OR - intend for the farm to provide about 60% of their menu, with hopes to eventually reach 100%. Their goals include continuing to supply local CSA's and even customers in the restaurant (like that turnip salad? when you ask for the check, just tell them to include a few bunches for you to make at home)
photo: David La Spina, New York Times
Listening to chef Shaw discuss the challenges of sourcing locally and working seasonally in the present day restaurant industry you get the sense that he and the team at Eno can make this work. Eno Restaurant & Market could just become another part in the effort toward decentralized, regional production, which some point to as part of the solutions to creating sustainable cities and towns.
Of course, spend time with anyone old enough to remember when small, local family farms weren't an endangered species and when vacation planning meant navigating tight harvest schedules and they'd marvel that anyone would think that some of these concepts are foreign. We think that proves exactly how far and how quickly we've gone from having intimate knowledge of food's origins to thinking that pork chops just come wrapped in cellophane. It's like how we must feel when people seemed puzzled when we say that there's no such thing as a plywood tree and MDF isn't an exotic hardwood.
Even if it's not a new idea, we really appreciate the effort to get the farm even closer to the table (hopefully an FTS table). Looking in the past can sometimes point toward a great future path, and Eno Restaurant & Market and Coon Rock Farm will hopefully be one sign of the path to come.
Like most concerned with sustainability issues and interested in living a more planet-friendly life, we've been encouraged by the steady growth of Slow Food, Farm to Table, and CSAs (community supported agriculture) efforts over the past two decades, and there seems to be a critical growth marker with places like Coon Rock Farm's, Eno Restaurant & Market.
There are all sorts restaurants focused on getting locally & responsibly produced menus. Some are even looking to supply their own ingredients in part - like the upcoming Breuckelen, for example. Detractors and critics of these efforts obviously point to challenges like where to source olive oil, spices or staples like rice and flour, but we think they miss the overall point that taking small steps toward a larger goal are required even if everything can't be solved at once.
Eno Restaurant & Market wants to take local production one step further by producing nearly all of its menu at Coon Rock Farms, which is only about 20 miles away. The partners at Coon Rock Farms - Jamie DeMent & Richard Holcomb - and chef Marco Shaw - formally of Fife in Portland, OR - intend for the farm to provide about 60% of their menu, with hopes to eventually reach 100%. Their goals include continuing to supply local CSA's and even customers in the restaurant (like that turnip salad? when you ask for the check, just tell them to include a few bunches for you to make at home)
photo: David La Spina, New York Times
Listening to chef Shaw discuss the challenges of sourcing locally and working seasonally in the present day restaurant industry you get the sense that he and the team at Eno can make this work. Eno Restaurant & Market could just become another part in the effort toward decentralized, regional production, which some point to as part of the solutions to creating sustainable cities and towns.
Of course, spend time with anyone old enough to remember when small, local family farms weren't an endangered species and when vacation planning meant navigating tight harvest schedules and they'd marvel that anyone would think that some of these concepts are foreign. We think that proves exactly how far and how quickly we've gone from having intimate knowledge of food's origins to thinking that pork chops just come wrapped in cellophane. It's like how we must feel when people seemed puzzled when we say that there's no such thing as a plywood tree and MDF isn't an exotic hardwood.
Even if it's not a new idea, we really appreciate the effort to get the farm even closer to the table (hopefully an FTS table). Looking in the past can sometimes point toward a great future path, and Eno Restaurant & Market and Coon Rock Farm will hopefully be one sign of the path to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment