You can grow your own food. We can help.

Restaurant Garden Reply

Oct 24, 2010

In response to a blog entry i just read about restaurant gardens i thought i would share this. As a chef in this day and age it is becoming increasingly important not only to make good food but to make it exciting. restaurant gardens are one of the easiest ways of doing this. i am chef and manager of a family pizzeria in Scranton, PA. we don't have an upscale menu by any means but peoples interest in exciting food is still there. now i can make a traditional garden salad no problem but if i make that same salad with heirloom variety tomatoes, fresh herbs, and edible flowers all from my garden people will talk about it and it will blow away my competition. So i guess what i am saying is that a restaurant is much like a garden in that you only get out of it what you put in, and if you take the time to actually grow the salad instead of just assembling it what you get will be something amazing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, patsalvaggio

Im a Chef who recently has become increasing interested in local foods, sustainability, and the use of it in day to day life. No one is going to do it for us, its time to make change happen.

Comments

Joel LeGrand

Sun, 10/24/2010 - 13:53

Scranton, PA. is along ways to drive for a boy in South Carolina, but if I am ever in town I will look you up.

Jessica Still

Sun, 10/24/2010 - 15:11

It feels really deliciously contrasty & surprising = exciting! as you say. When my son was recruited as a fly-fishing guide for a high-end outfitter in Sun Valley, Idaho, the guides had to provide gourmet, hand-made fresh food to their clients. Richard had picking privileges in my garden & once got a personal letter of appreciation for a lunch he served an advertising executive from New York City. The menu featured grilled tempeh-burgers & Asian fresh salad greens with lots of spicy little flowers - dressed with his own Teriaki vineagrette, sweetened with home-made apricot jam. And the dining setting was the open back-camper-shell of Richard's truck during a hail storm - for loud background music. :-) Among other compliments, the letter said one of the pleasures of living in NYC was all the 5-star restaurants - but he had never had a better salad in his life!