Colorado farms – setting the table for local chefs

DENVER LIFE M AGAZINE
Happy Food: Eat to Enhance Your Emotional Health
CULTURE | ADVENTURE | STYLE
Follow
Colorado’s
Farm-to-Table
CULTURE | ADVENTURE | ST YLE
Journey
Local chefs share agrarian
stories and recipes
ild Sockeye
Colterra’s W
zucchini,
ith
w
Salmon
ach,
sh and spin
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by
ed
ar
ep
pr
expertly
d Heap
Chef Bradfor
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5 colorado
kitchens
blend function
& style
denverlifemagazine.com
get to know
the chefs
behind denver’s
culinary scene
beat the
heat
in frisco
illustrations by lisa haney
What does local mean to you?
36%
In
State
10%
200
Miles
10%
15%
100
Miles
50
Miles
6%
Regional
4%
Days
Drive
Source: USDA Farm to School Census
denverlifemagazine.com
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COLORADO
FARMS
setting the table for local chefs
Hate me for saying this, but it’s true. One of the most overused terms
in the restaurant industry is “farm to table,” or “field to fork” or
“ranch to plate” or “rod to restaurant” or whatever term you want
to call it. Don’t get me wrong; the focus on local food, reducing food
miles and getting closer to our food sources is important. It’s what
we’ve all been striving for. Now comes the hard part: creating best
practices, improving the quality of the plate and staying true to
a
sustainability in our state and the planet.
By Kimberly Lord Stewart
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DENVER LIFE MAGAZINE
F
300
the number
of Denver
restaurants,
brewpubs
and bars*
denverlifemagazine.com
Josh Olsen points to a pea tendril and some Johnny
Jump Ups that are just beginning to flower. “To buy
these for the restaurant would put me in the poor
house,” he says. It was late spring when we met at
Squeaky Acres, The Squeaky Bean’s urban farm in
Lakewood. “It would be impossible to have the diversity of ingredients on our plates without this farm,”
says Josh.
On the day I visited, The Squeaky Bean’s Chef Theo
Adley was tending to the ducks in a small wooden pen.
Once the laying starts, Adley has visions of duck eggs
for brunch and rich egg-yolk pastas. For this chef, the
farm has substantially increased his catalogue of options that he can experiment with and collaborate on
with the staff for new menus, including rarely grown
heirloom tomatoes and just-plucked ruby-red lettuce.
“This place has become the soul of the restaurant,”
Adley says.
Josh has learned that our increasingly mono-crop
system of agriculture is in stark contrast to the diversity he needs to run a restaurant with a seasonal menu.
“I grew up helping my grandparents grow cash crops
in South Dakota,” he says. “But this kind of farming
takes a different level of intensity and investment.” To
maintain ingredient diversity, The Squeaky Bean has
multiple growing sites. Squeaky Acres is one source;
the herb gardens at the former location in Highlands
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“This place has
become the soul of the
restaurant.” Chef Theo Adley
referring to The Squeaky Bean’s urban farm
is another. A third source is the Warren Tech High
School greenhouse in Lakewood.
annette slade photography inc.
or restaurant owners and chefs, even if
the food is locally sourced, it’s no longer
as easy as calling a supplier and waiting
for the backdoor delivery in a few days’ or
weeks’ time. It’s about relationships, verification, trust
and most of all collaboration between the chef and the
farmer. For some chefs, local isn’t enough; it’s about
hyper-local – sourcing from urban neighborhood gardens, buying a farm or investing in a farmer. Regardless
of which term you prefer, it is hard work for two professions that, by nature, require a great deal of sweat and a
lot of risk.
Makes two servings
Ingredients
½ of a Burrata cheese ball
(available at specialty cheese
markets)
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon sea salt, plus
additional for seasoning
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus
additional for drizzling on the
burrata
½ cup raspberry vinegar, divided
3 teaspoons sugar, divided
3 teaspoons mustard seeds,
divided
½ small shallot, thinly sliced
½ of a ripe apricot, thinly sliced
A sprinkle of purslane leaves,
picked of the stems (or
substitute parsley)
2 Tablespoons Panko
breadcrumbs*
Generous handful of arugula
1 radish, thinly sliced
Burrata with Purslane, Apricot, Mustard
seed and Lemon Verbena Burrata is a fresh Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream. It’s name means buttered and
the taste is as good as butter. The outside of a Burrata is mozzarella, while the inside is both mozzarella and cream. The combination gives the cheese a creamy, soft and luxurious texture.
a
Directions
1. To make the raspberry vinaigrette, add the ¼ cup raspberry vinegar, olive oil, salt and
1 teaspoon of sugar in a small
bowl. Stir well to dissolve the
salt and sugar. Set aside.
2.To make the pickled and candied mustard seeds, add 2
teaspoons of mustard seeds,
shallot, ¼ cup raspberry vinegar and 2 teaspoons of sugar
into a small saucepan. Bring to
a strong simmer and cook until
syrupy. Set aside.
3. In a separate small pot, cover
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds
in cold water. Bring to a boil,
drain and repeat. On the second boil, season the water
well with sea salt.
4.Drain the mustard seeds from
both pots and fold the two
together.
5. Set the burrata on a serving
plate and season with sea salt,
freshly ground black pepper
and olive oil.
6. Lightly season the arugula and
radishes with the raspberry
vinaigrette and set along one
side of the plate.
7. Scatter the pickled mustard
seeds, apricot, purslane and
Panko bread crumbs all around
the plate.
*To toast breadcrumbs, add 2
teaspoons of olive oil to a non-stick
skillet. Add breadcrumbs and toast
until light brown.
Recipe is courtesy of Chef Theo Adley, Executive Chef of The Squeaky Bean
Photography by Annette Slade Photography, Inc.
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DENVER LIFE MAGAZINE
a
Colterra Beet Salad
Recipe courtesy of Colterra. Beets and fennel courtesy of Soul Patch farms.
Photography by Annette Slade Photography, Inc.
Makes 6 servings
Ingredients
8 large, local, organic beets (can be any variety; Colterra prefers golden, chioggia or red)
1 cup oven-toasted walnuts
1 small fennel bulb, shaved paper thin
½ cup fresh herbs, leaves only, stems removed
(mixture of basil, cilantro, Italian parsley, tarragon, mint and chopped chives)
4o
z. Broken Shovels chevre (or other local
goat cheese)
½ cup apple cider vinaigrette (see far right)
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt to taste
denverlifemagazine.com
Directions
To roast the beets:
1. Preheat oven to 375° degrees.
2. W
ash and scrub beets, trim off the leaves
and pat dry.
3. Coat beets in extra-virgin olive oil.
4. W
rap beets in aluminum foil, place on a baking sheet and roast in the oven until cooked
through (pierced easily with the tip of a
knife), approximately 45 to 60 minutes.
5. Remove from the oven, let cool for 20 minutes, peel and cut into ¾-inch cubes.
To assemble the salad:
1. In a mixing bowl, combine the beets, vinaigrette and half of the fresh herbs. Season
with a pinch of kosher salt and mix gently
until beets are coated with the vinaigrette.
2. Divide the beets between six salad plates
and garnish with walnuts, chevre, shaved
fennel and remaining fresh herbs. Drizzle
with extra-virgin olive oil and serve.
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For the vinaigrette:
2 cups fresh apple cider
½ cup cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoon minced Italian parsley
1 cup GMO-free salad oil
Kosher salt to taste
Directions
1. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, over medium
high heat, reduce the cider to approximately
¼ cup and allow to cool.
2. In a blender, combine vinegar, cider reduction and Dijon mustard.
3. Blend on medium high speed and slowly
drizzle salad oil in.
4. Turn off blender and stir in the minced parsley with a spoon.
5. Season to taste with kosher salt.
Note: The vinaigrette can be made up to seven days
in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Josh’s brother, Nate Olsen is a S2TEM (science,
sustainability technology, engineering and math) instructor at Warren Tech, a technology high school for
Jefferson County students. The school’s greenhouse
serves as an incubator lab for Squeaky Acres. Highschool juniors and seniors work with Josh and farm
manager James Stewart Douglas to prepare the soil and
start seedlings for transplants.
“It’s neat for the students to see how what we are
teaching is being used in a restaurant,” says Nate. He
explains that the students love the school-restaurant
partnership. They have a much better understanding
of where their food comes from, as well as Colorado’s
seasons and how food production and transportation
impact global sustainability. “The students see Josh’s
passion and the program really shows off both our
interests in teaching and culinary arts,” Nate says. Next
year, the students plan to develop a similar program
for their campus restaurant, called Expectations.
Buying
in or buying
the farm?
For Chef Bradford Heap, he wanted to have tighter
control of the quality of the ingredients that came
in the backdoor. To make this happen, Heap, chef
and owner of Colterra in Niwot and SALT in Boulder,
needed more than a vendor; he needed a partner. So
he formed a collaborative enterprise called The Soul
Patch with Dave Asbury, owner of Full Circle Farms
and the Rocky Mountain Pumpkin Patch in Longmont. Asbury farms 1,200 acres that include 300 dif-
ferent vegetables and a few cash crops. Soul Patch is a
15-acre area exclusively farmed for Heap’s restaurants.
Heap and Asbury weren’t strangers; the chef had
been buying from Asbury for the past 20 years. For
many years, Heap told Asbury that he wanted to buy a
farm, similar to Chef Alex Seidel of Fruition in Denver and Chef Erik Skokan of Black Cat Restaurant in
Boulder. It’s a romantic idea, but Asbury talked him
out of it.
The September 2013 floods were reason enough
for Heap to rethink whether he wanted to own his
own farm. The fragility of the land and the mess left
behind in his own backyard reminded Heap of his
place in this life-cycle of food and eating. “I am an avid
gardener, not a farmer like Dave,” says Heap. “Mother
Nature doesn’t play favorites. She decides whether we
will have a crop,” says Asbury as we walked through the
strawberry fields, tugging weeds from the damp soil.
“The flood was a big reminder.”
Asbury grew up farming with his father. Ask anyone
around these parts, and they will tell you that Asbury is
one of the most respected produce farmers. Even with
his deep knowledge, farming has changed and Asbury
knew he needed to alter things in order to be successful. “I wanted to do something different, and Bradford
pushed me,” says Asbury. Heap saw it differently. “It’s
more that I pestered him long enough and he finally
gave in.”
On Asbury’s farm, Heap’s enthusiasm for the project was palpable. Heap pulled weeds, taste-tested the
season’s first strawberries and marveled at Soul Patch’s
10,700
restaurants,
brewpubs
and bars total
in colorado*
$27
Million
The amount
Coloradoans
spend per day
eating out*
780
Colorado
farms grow
vegetables*
Boulder Bike-to-Farm Tours
Experience the local farm culture by taking a private, group or electric bike ride through Boulder with
Awestruck Outdoors, for a price ranging from $35 to $150. Awestruck also offers a Thursday Night Biketo-Farm Tour for $39. Conclude both tours at one of the local farms and feast on local cuisine, which
might include fresh farm-grown salad, dessert or if you end at Lonehawk Farm, Southern-inspired fare
such as fried green tomatoes or fruit cobbler. For a bigger feast, which features live music, go on the
Tour de Farm tour held once a month. Snowshoeing to the farms is also an option in the winter months.
awestruckoutdoors.com
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DENVER LIFE MAGAZINE
337
the number
of Denver
fast-casual
restaurants*
2
Million
The number of
meals served at
Colorado
restaurants*
2,776
The acres of
Colorado peach
trees*
progress while we talked. “I knew I couldn’t get the
quality I wanted, like in these strawberries, without
investing seed money in Dave,” Heap says. “The chefs
get all the credit, but it’s the farmer who does all the
hard work.”
Though our conversation took place in late
spring, Heap was already anticipating haricot vert
and cardoons, two ingredients that are virtually
impossible to find from a traditional supplier. The
investment in one another’s craft means that Heap
and Asbury can decide
what gets planted and when
it will be ready. For Heap,
it also guarantees that it is
free of genetically modified
organisms (GMOs). This
issue is not an option for
Heap. He has rid his restaurant entirely of products
that contain any trace of
GMOs. As of press time, he
was expecting both of his
restaurants to be certified
by the GMO-Free Project as
free of GM ingredients.
Asbury is a committed
organic farmer, so there
was no conflict with fresh
ingredients, but Heap
—Michael Brownlee
had to rethink all his
other suppliers. “First, we
switched out Coca-Cola
products for Boylan’s canesugar soft drinks,” Heap says. Then he focused on
beef, pork and poultry suppliers to ensure none
used GM-feed. Grain-based ingredients such as
polenta, corn and even cornstarch had to be replaced. Cooking oil from canola or soy was not an
option, so he switched to rice bran oil for sautéing
and peanut oil for frying. “I recently discovered that
white vinegar is made from GM corn, so I switched
to an organic brand,” Heap says. He also mastered a
house-made ketchup recipe that is as thick, sweet
and tart as any name-brand.
“In the Front
Range of
Colorado,
we have an
opportunity
to build a
localized
foodshed that
is sustainable,
resilient and
self-reliant.”
Investing in Colorado’s
future
*Sources: Colorado Restaurant
Association, Colorado Brewers Guild,
USDA Farm to School Census
denverlifemagazine.com
a 30 percent increase in direct sales growth from local
farms, which is twice the national average, according
to the most recent agriculture census (USDA 2012).
Organic farm sales in Colorado rose 35 percent since
2007, from $50.6 million to $68.2 million.
A majority of the organic food sales in Colorado
were sold directly to restaurants or consumers at
farmers markets and community supported agriculture programs. Though sales increased significantly,
the number of organic farms in the state declined.
One of the reasons for the
decline is the pressure on
water resources and the
cost of organic certification. To control costs, many
smaller growers continue
to farm organically and sell
directly to customers, but
they have opted not to be
certified as organic to avoid
the expense.
Though farmers aren’t
giving up their organic
farming practices, they see
how Colorado’s consumers value local. Michael
Brownlee, founder of
Local Food Shift, says the
needle is slowly moving,
as most-recent data shows,
but there is more work to
be done.
“In the Front Range, we
have an opportunity to build a localized foodshed that
is economically robust, environmentally sustainable,
resilient and self-reliant,” Brownlee says. “One that
ensures food security and food sovereignty and food
justice for all, that contributes to the health and happiness of citizens and revitalizes our local economy.”
If Colorado’s restaurants and residents get really
serious about local food purchases and shifted consumption to 25 percent of their total food buys, the
state would not only see an increase in farms but also
at least 31,000 more jobs, $1.3 billion in added wages, $2.1
billion in value adds and $197 million more tax dollars.
Overall, Colorado continues to stay committed to
local and organic food choices. It will take an even
stronger commitment from local restaurants, food institutions and residents to see a stronger, more vibrant
local food system.
While the commitment these chefs are making is
admirable, one has to ask about the greater impact on
Colorado farm survival and our economy. It’s a work in
progress, say experts. From 2002 to 2007, Colorado saw
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Happy Anniversary
By Paul Reilly, chef/co-owner of Beast + Bottle
Denver is knee-deep in a culinary revolution as I write this.
Terrific restaurants are opening faster than we can staff
them. New concepts become
media darlings before the ink
dries on a contract, long before the first cook lifts a knife
to begin prep. So much has
been written about so many
new ventures—Beast + Bottle
included—that I want to kick
Aaron Forman
it old school for a second and
give some love to some anniversaries within our industry
that have gone largely unnoticed by the press.
The affable Aaron Forman
just celebrated 10 years at his
6th Ave. gem, Table 6. Table 6
has stayed the course on their
concept and remained great
for a decade now. Chef Carrie
Blake has them hitting on all
Carrie Blake
cylinders and producing delicious, seasonal fare.
How about my boy, Goose
Sorenson? Goose has weathered the storm for 13 years
now with Solera being the only
relevant restaurant in the culinary wasteland that is E. Colfax
Ave. Now that neighborhood is
about to pop with Goose as its
godfather. Luca D’Italia is also
10 years old; Chef Eric Cimino
Goose Sorenson
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Eric Cimino
quietly puts out some of Denver’s most beautiful plates. And
then, there’s my family at Vesta
Dipping Grill. After 17 years of
throwing a party on Blake St.
Chef Brandon Foster has updated the menu and put them
on top once again.
Let’s not forget these restaurants that have paved the
way for our bright future here
in Denver.
Brandon Foster
DENVER LIFE MAGAZINE
Summer Soul
Cocktail
Recipe
a
Recipe courtesy of SALT. Strawberries and basil courtesy of Soul
Patch Farms.
Photography by Annette Slade
Photography Inc.
Makes one cocktail
Ingredients
4 strawberries, divided
4 fresh basil leaves, divided
1 ½ oz. Spring44 honey vodka
¼ oz. Aquavit
½ oz. Godiva white chocolate
liqueur
1 oz. fresh lemon juice
3/4 oz. plain simple syrup
2 dashes of chocolate bitters
Directions
Place three strawberries and
three basil leaves in a cocktail
shaker. Add other ingredients and
shake well. Strain through a fine
mesh strainer over ice into a highball glass. Garnish with strawberry
and basil.
denverlifemagazine.com
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