Hot from the Pot: News from Kevin's Kitchen, Fall 1997
From Lancaster, Bucks and Montgomery counties the farmers' trucks and vans arrive twice weekly with their bounteous harvest of locally grown organic produce, humanely raised animals, fresh cheese, mushrooms and stone ground flours. Its a shoppers' dream to have the best of everything delivered right to our door and we are very appreciative of the growers and their efforts. And what efforts! Having Mother Nature as a partner in your business is a boom or bust proposition that the majority of us would find rather intimidating. But season after season the farmers persevere through too much or too little rain, too hot or too cold temperatures, an early frost or a late snowfall, just waiting for the right moment to plant or to pick.
This achievement leaves my fellow cooks and myself awestruck. Tender, hand-picked baby greens, lush tomatoes, jeweled peppers, bouquets of fragrant herbs, brilliant flowers, a cornucopia of heirloom vegetables, succulent berries and fruits, and cheese from goats we knew as kids. We relish the adventure of incorporating these fabulous ingredients into our menus.
This fall we anticipate the arrival of orchard fruits from Lancaster County and Green Meadow Farm hand-picked for us by farmer Glenn Brendle. Bosc, Comice and tiny Seckel pears for roasting with warm curry spices and served with baked Greystone Chevratel from Douglass Newbolds' herd of Nubian goats. Apples galore, and winter squash from Mark and Judy Dornstreichs' Branch Creek Farm, glazed with honey and rosemary to serve with Eberly Farm's chicken, raised on organic corn feed and smoked over fragrant herbwood collected by Paul Tsakos of Overbrook Herb Farm. From a North Philadelphia berry patch, Philaberry, we get late harvest raspberries to preserve and serve with pancakes from buckwheat flour milled at Roer's Gristmill, the oldest continuously operated grist mill in America.
In our search for organic, humanely-raised meat products we discovered tender and mild-flavored lamb from Jamison Farm in Latrobe, PA, that we can already smell roasting with juniper and sage. Walnut Acres, the fifty year old organic farm in Penns Creek, sends its' lean, range-fed beef that we flame grill with wild mushrooms and serve aside creamy just-dug potato and leek gratin. Glenn Brendle has located a hog farmer who sells us a whole pig every other week for our sherry roasted porkchop filled with toasted walnut and blue cheese stuffing, ginger grilled pork medallions with fresh tomato mint chutney, real farmed cured hams, homemade sausage and smoked slab bacon for brunch.
After the frost, much of our fresh produce is delivered by Albert's Organics, of Bridgeport, NJ. Yukon gold potatoes for making our truffled potato cakes with cr¸me fra”che and chives, hearty greens for braising with balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic, black eggplant for spicy Middle Eastern dishes cooled with bio-dynamic yogurt from seven Star Farm's in Kimberton, PA. Best of all, tart and sweet citrus fruits our pastry chefs are eager to transform into Campari grapefruit sorbet, lime curd tartlets in a macadamia nut crust, and dark chocolate blood orange mousse.
I hope you'll join us for a comforting meal of your old-time fall favorites and that you'll sample some of our new dishes that appear daily on each of our menus.
Kevin von Klause, Chef/Partner
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