Bon Apetit magazine just listed Paso Robles as one of America’s Foodiest Small Towns. And they mentioned Villa Creek Restaurant as one of the foodie havens! Sure, Durham-Chapel Hill, NC ran away with the gold and the feature article, but we think we’re just as good if not better… Of course, we might be a little biased in our opinion!

The article begins with this:

“Imagine a place where foodies not only have a favorite chef, but also a favorite farmer; a place where the distance between the organic farm and the award-winning restaurant is mere miles; a place where a sustainable future is foreseeable. It’s all a reality in Durham-Chapel Hill.”

Could be a statement describing Paso Robles, don’t you think? Except that they would have to mention our world-class wineries and vineyards as well.

Janis Switzer recently gave this mention a nod in the Tribune, along with a lovely description of her recent meal. Thanks, Janis!

Dining in all the fabulous restaurants in the big cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or San Francisco, you can find a wide array of themes. You can find facilities with Nuevo Latino, Italian, French, Dim Sum… classic themes like these, while some restaurants rock the latest trend, which could be whatever the Food Network has told America. With the somewhat recent release of Al Gore’s film The Inconvenient Truth, rising gas prices, and rocky economy, creative marketing has become a very sought after skill. Other informative and mind-opening media pieces such as Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me or Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma have caused the food industry to reevaluate the way food is sold. Corporate food chains display bright banners with words like ‘organic’ or ‘fresh’ embossed across the packaging that is ‘biodegradable.’  T.V. commercials or ads are bright and coupled with a kitschy soda-pop soundtrack to lure our unsuspecting youth.

Coming out of culinary school, I wanted to shape the industry and show everyone something they hadn’t seen before.  Armed with my new piece of paper that told me and everyone else that I knew how to make hollandaise and butcher salmon, I was led to believe I was going to get my face on the covers of Saveur, Food & Wine or possibly my own cookbook. However, what I wanted to show the world was prepackaged and the same thing that the instructors at the school had spoon-fed to many other students like me. I was left with something that was not new and lacked my soul and any real foundation, and my quest to invent something new must begin. Luckily I came to the realization that the old way of doing food, the really old way, was and is still the right way. Restaurants, hotels and cooks of households in rural towns shopped in the market square that we know now as the Farmer’s Market and prepared what was available to them at the market. The geographic location of where you lived dictated what was available to you. For example: if you lived on the coast, the ocean’s treasures were there for you. If you lived in the mountains, goat, rabbit and cattle might more likely make an appearance on your menu. Of course the geographic location with its soil content and climate also affected what produce was available to you.  Living in California I am fortunate as I have a huge array of vegetables and fruit here for my picking, as well as the most expansive coastline in the U.S. and several fresh water resources to fish from.  Within a hundred mile radius all of these things are at my fingertips. The proximity eliminates the gas consumed to deliver any nonlocal product, and ensures freshness.

As a cook I want to serve foods that taste good and are exciting, but at what cost?  Should I be serving pumpkin in the middle of spring? Or should I be flying in halibut from Alaska if I have fresh California halibut available? These don’t support my local economy or help my environment by flying or driving a product hundreds or even thousands of miles away to reach my table. As a consumer, these questions should be asked: Where did my vegetables come from? How is it that I am having English peas in the middle of fall?  It’s spring, how or why am I enjoying figs?  Is it that these things do not matter?  Of course they do! Neither is available in those seasons.  Again this goes back to the classic way of doing things. Foods should only be prepared while they are seasonally available. Now of course with modern developments like planes, trains and refrigeration, people in South Dakota can get fresh tomatoes, avocados or mangoes and in the blistering cold winter.  Again, at what cost?

For me, I like having the ability to visit with the farmer and ask him or her what is on hand as well as what will be coming on line in the next few months. Sure, its fabulous to be able to display exotic items from far off places and sit in a dining room that looks like it was pieced together from a town in the La Mancha region of Spain, but again at what cost?

So now with a few years of industry realities under my toque, I have developed an idea of what the world needs to see (and I strongly emphasize the word, needs).  With a cynical but very realist chef as a boss and mentor showing me the way as a young epicurean, I have realized that yeah, all the million dollar restaurants with chefs who have their names embroidered across their chests and dining rooms designed by GQ’s top rated interior designers are great but what are they doing for the community in which they reside? How are they giving back? Being in a small town versus a large city, this point is far more important in the birthing years because you do not have the masses to visit your establishment and pay your bills.  However, in the grand scheme of things if more restaurants decided to only buy local either from fishmongers, cheese mongers, cattlemen or farmers, the local agricultural economy would thrive and allow for growth and security instead of being outsourced from a stranger hundreds of miles away.  And come on, isn’t nice to know where your beef came from and not just seeing a picture of your happy cow in a green pasture chewing on some grass behind a wood fence? FYI, I have decided that Happy Cows come from Cayucos. Just look at that view!

Happy cows come from Cayucos

The beauty of this concept of Local, Organic & Sustainable is that any cuisine can fit this mold. It’s this simple if an ingredient is missing in order for your cuisine to be completed you either do away with the recipe or the cuisine as a hole. Don’t get me wrong, I love having all the Chinese, Thai, Indian or Italian restaurants around to dine at but just imagine how much better they would be if they were based in their proper environment. This idea allows for a fresh menu that correlates with what is fresh that day. This is so cutting edge because now the cook is faced with a challenge to prepare something what is available now and not with a set of ingredients he or she is so used to having readily available due to modern logistic capabilities. Could there be a better market for the consumer? Farmers, ranchers and fishmongers working hand-in-hand with chefs to bring the consumer the freshest product available?

The very idea has sparked my appetite.

Once again the walk-in refrigerators of Villa Creek have been graced with the presence of beautiful summer treasures. As I step into the cool frigid air and lay my eyes upon the shelves I see unbelievable produce and dream of dishes to prepare for patrons. Flats filled with juicy strawberries, blueberries, black mission figs, cherries and raspberries all brought to us from the Bay area via one of our organic, sustainable and local purveyors Veritable Vegetable. In addition to those juicy fruits we try to provide on the table some local treats featured on a number of our plates such as the Cheese Plate, Shepherd’s Plate, Fruit Plate, Fresh Berry Gratinado and a couple other dessert items. Some berries from closer to home are blackberries and boysenberries that are without a doubt the best I’ve ever had. When they arrive from Four Elements Organics, located in Atascadero, I look at the flat and try not to consume too many while thinking of new and creative ways to use them. Though the best way to have them is just washed and popped in your mouth. Chef, gets on the staff for eating too much of them but its so hard when they are as good as these and when you see the tips of his fingers stained, just as yours, with the color of their incredible juice you smile inside knowing you can’t just walk by them without a taste. Its as if they are calling to you…eat me…eat me, I’m so tasty.

Not only has the kitchen tried to shove these amazing berries down your throats but so has the bar. If you find yourself at Villa Creek and are in dire need of a cocktail to unwind from the days pressures post up at the bar and let one of bartenders fix you a black berry mojito or some other concoction that will have you slip away into berry ecstasy.

If there is one thing you can be happy about last weeks intense heat is the beautiful summer treasures it has packed for us in little cardboard flats from our farmers, berries galore.

Whether you are a local, regular or first time diner coming in this weekend you are in for a treat. We will be featuring our kitchen staff’s favorite Braised Rabbit with Sauteed Bloomsdale Spinach, Creamy Polenta and Mole Negro. We do this dish from time to time and has gained much popularity from its appearance on some of our previous menus. This dish speaks to someone who is either willing to try something new and go on a culinary adventure to the heart of Mexico or to a mole guru who expects something great from anyone bold enough to put it on their menu.  And Chef Tom has created just that a very robust mole that culminates to a sweet, spicy, chocolaty, nutty and fruity finish that will have you quite literally licking your plate. Obviously my opinion as the Sous Chef is quite biased and I think that everything we do is absolutely fantastic so don’t take my word for it, come in and try it for yourself. I will promise that you will not be disappointed. If you come in, tell you server to not even bother with the additions or the menu at all and say, “I’ll have the Rabbit.” I recommend a nice glass of Tempranillo or our Villa Creek Cellars Cuvee.   Enjoy!

For all of you who have read and remember the post on our charcuterie program I would like to update you on the progress of said meats.  Over the last 6 months We have used, in the restaurant, salami, lomo and house cured Jamon. I was fortunate to be able to take one of the hams to the Aspen Food & Wine Classic and  it was well received.  I was asked several times as to how consumers could purchase some of the Jamon and I was pleased to direct them to the restaurant.  Maybe one day I will be able to ramp up production enough to sell retail. For now if you want some, it will be available at the restaurant for the next 2 months and then gone for another year.  Good news though, I will be doubling my production this year and creating more yummy cured pig parts for the restaurant using only organically grown boutique pigs. Sooo, If you want some come and get it!

Have you looked around lately?

Green is everywhere. Green is the new black. It’s what’s now. And it’s about time.

You see, we’ve been on this ride for years now, we haven’t been saying much about it, but now suddenly it’s cool. It’s a marketing tool.

Remember when America was on its “Fat Free” trip? And then suddenly you’d see little red stars on packages of dried fruit that boasted, “NOW FAT FREE!!” when we all knew that they were fat free to begin with? That’s kind of how we feel now promoting the same mission statement we’ve been standing by all along: Local, Sustainable, Organic.

So while we may not be the new kids on the block around here, we are at the very least seasoned veterans. And we’ll carry on with our original mission, but now maybe we’ll wave our flag a little higher.

Where to begin?

They serve Pop Tarts at schools. Did you know that? They serve them at schools in seemingly progressive areas in California. In the same zip code that organic farmers and Grass fed beef ranchers barely break even on a yearly basis doing the things they believe to be right, the School district has the unmitigated gall to serve “pop tarts” at the student run snack bar. Without a toaster. What is a Pop Tart? It certainly can’t be food. Is it a toaster candy bar that nods its head toward the fruits and vegetable block of the food pyramid? Or is it just another way we can further utilize the surplus corn that is grown in our fertile land in Middle America, to destroy the health of our youth.

I can’t tell which is more appalling to me; the way we underpay our teachers and overpay our politicians or the way we worship our Celebrity Chefs and yet pay no attention to the true heroes of the food industry, the farmers. Both are equally insipid, both equally damaging to our future and day to day life. But one seems obvious while the other is still cloaked in a perception of integrity. We can all agree that the crime of overpaying fat cats on the hill, whilst the mentors of our youth live in respective squalor is atrocious, and that it is so bogged down in the mire of bureaucracy and unions that we may never really find national solution. But do we really understand the idolatry involved in raising chefs to a level of god-like celebrity, and not really praise those who live on little or no profit to tip at windmills against the great corporate farming giants (seemingly in bed with the chemical companies, the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies. I like to call this the evil empire just to tip my hat to George Lucas).
We should be making TV shows about the Spencers of Windrose Farm or the Proprietors of T & D Willey. We should laude and write songs about the three visionary women who started Veritable Vegetable in the Bay area. Where are the parades and awards shows for sentries like Frank Lamacchia of PL Bar Ranch beef who raises smaller cattle on grass right up until they are respectfully loaded on trucks 6 at a time to go to slaughter at a local meat house. Or the Hearst corporation who funds the Hearst Ranch beef project that does the same thing, utilizing natural genetics to create tender beef not genetically modified corn slurries created by and funded by the evil empire. For that matter we could talk about even smaller ranchers Coco from Fair Oaks Beef who has gotten together with a rancher from New Zealand (a place much more spatially challenged than us) who together have been working on genetics and pasture management to create a more efficient use of land and resources to create their beef. Why are we not giving congressional medals to them? They seem to be more interested in our future than either the politicians, teachers unions or chefs. And these are only the farmers in my neck of the woods.

I don’t want you to get the impression that I am unaware of the relative handful of celebrity chefs that do speak about their farmers and are advocates for a better food system. But why are we not as outraged about the sneaky pop tart as we are the dairy cattle that are being abused (Again not to undermine the ethical treatment of livestock, I will be ranting on that next week). Because we are entirely too enamoured with ourselves. The media makes gods of lesser men and denies deity to those who truly are heroes. Because we can look to those who create tasty treats with things like corn syrup and pectin powder, bleached and enriched flour with such doe-eyed respect that we lose sight of what is real. That is how we justify pop tarts that say things like “real Fruit” and “all natural”. We are putting our respect and trust in the wrong people. Go to Your farmer ask him where and what you should eat. Or better yet ask him what your children should eat at school. Ask him why abused cattle are getting into the school food system and ask him how we as a nation of small communities can change what we are doing to our future. He will tell you what chefs are doing the right thing. She will tell you where and what to buy, and in my experience they tend to be less self-serving than the media chefs.

When you stray from what is real, when you no longer respect those who provide for your needs, you inevitably run the risk of allowing questionable slaughter practices and the sneaky pop tart into your life and your children’s schools.

I know, I know, I have been truant in my correspondence with the masses. Here I am trying to decide what to talk to you about. Do I tell you about the 250 Pound Pig that we had raised, butchered and house cured? Maybe I write about the Political landscape in the upcoming election. How about discussing the merits and meanings of “sustainable and organic”…. No, let’s talk pig!

It was a blast taking a whole animal, disassembling it, curing it, hanging it, watching it dry, slicing it and eating it. It gives one a real respect for food when you have to look an animal in the eye before you process it. It also provides the necessary motivation to make sure you don’t screw it up.

I started with the hams. Wow! what hams! These things were 30 lbs a piece. It took 12 lbs of salt for each and almost 150 lbs of weight to press the liquid out of them.
Curing hams for Serrano ham(Spain) or Prosciutto(Italy) is one of the oldest forms of preservation on the planet and I felt linked to generations of people trying to feed their families in the off season. It is so very “Little House on the Prairie”.

I needed to press them in salt for 30 days, so half way through I changed the salt and checked the meat for the cursory outer drying that takes place. They were already tightening up nicely and getting the proper color. I replaced them under the 150 pounds of brick.

Meanwhile I started on the coppa. Using curing salts, sugar and herbs I cured the pork loin and allowed 16 days for proper curing. I also started making sausage for the restaurant. We made a standard spiced sausage that we serve on our “Shepherd’s Plate”. We made Chorizo in the Spanish style as well as a red wine and pepper flavored Salumi. I am particularly fond of the Chorizo, its smoky sweetness and meaty garlic flavor go so well with the local wines.

I also made some pancetta out of the pork bellies, which we use to wrap our house made pate´. I dig the earthy spice it gives the noble “meatloaf”. The other pork belly was gingerly braised in duck fat and is still curing in said fat as I write this tale.

With all this meat curing and hanging in the walk-ins, I can’t walk ten feet without smelling the romantically pungent odor of salted meat. In this Cook’s humble opinion, there are few smells more appealing than the earthy richness provided by hanging pork in a curing room. If you ever have the chance to do so don’t pass it up. It is an aroma that feeds the soul.