Chef Profiles

The movement toward sustainable organic agriculture has many facets. Seed producers, market farmers, backyard gardeners, farmers market organizers, community supported agriculture (CSA) growers, food cooperatives and natural food markets are all joining forces to bring eco-sanity to our food supply. Often overlooked in this movement are some of America’s leading chefs and restauranteurs who have worked hard to promote organic and local food. Over the years, Seeds of Change has worked with some of the country’s foremost chefs to give us feedback on our varieties, and enlighten us to new ways to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Culinary artists like Jesse Cool, Joseph Reid, and Deborah Madison have been profiled on the pages of our catalog and continue to inspire our work.

This year we are pleased to profile Nora Pouillon and Paul Kahan, two pioneering chefs (and organic gardeners), who are supporting their local farmers, sourcing organically grown ingredients, and revolutionizing the way restaurants can be part of a local food economy while creating some of the finest cuisine on the planet.

Nora Pouillon is one of the world’s pioneering organically focused chefs. Her restaurant, a Washington, D.C. institution, has been sourcing organic ingredients and working with local farmers for over 25 years to create a unique seasonal dining experience based on sustainably produced or harvested meat and fish, and fresh locally grown produce. Nora can often be seen harvesting fresh herbs from the small garden outside the restaurant or tasting the latest products at Washington, D.C.’s farmers markets.

Discussing the finer points of fava beans with a local grower, before purchasing her entire stock.

If you shop at Chicago’s Organic Farmers Market on any Wednesday or Saturday during the growing season you’re likely to run into Paul Kahan, executive chef of Chicago’s Blackbird Restaurant, visiting with local farmers and purchasing fresh locally produced ingredients. Over the last ten years Paul has built Blackbird into one of the city’s hottest restaurants by focusing on clean fresh flavors and highly seasonal cuisine. Besides growing a number of Blackbird’s signature ingredients, such as Lacinato kale and Sylvetta arugula, in his own backyard garden, Paul is deeply committed to supporting local, sustainably managed farms.

Scott Vlaun: It seems like Blackbird is the gold standard for seasonal restaurants in the area. How did you get here and what’s your philosophy behind the restaurant?

Paul Kahan: When I started 10 years ago with Blackbird a lot of people claimed they were seasonal, supported local agriculture, claimed they were sustainable. I think the movement has grown in leaps and bounds and a lot more people are now. I made a huge effort to be the most seasonal restaurant in Chicago and that has been the sole driving force for the restaurant. Today my pastry chef got fresh persimmons, pomegranates, pears and apples. So everything on the dessert menu will be changing in the next two weeks to reflect stuff that’s in season. It’s hard to keep up with it all the time, but that’s what this restaurant is all about. It’s about focusing on clean flavors, and it’s also about fun. We have kind of a light approach to things. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.

SV: Do you seek out specific varieties of produce, like a certain variety of tomato or a specific kale that you might ask a farmer to grow for you?

PK: Well you know, I’ve been a huge fan of this Lacinato kale for many years. We cook it down really, really slow with a lot of bacon and shallots and it gets almost caramely and meaty. It’s phenomenal. I guess I just get into a rut of things that I really love and can grow in this little garden and really bring a lot into the restaurant. I brought in two big garbage bags stuffed with kale this year early on in the season and this will keep going. I really need to find more stuff that can carry me through the colder months.

SV: There are some great cold hardy greens, especially the mustards. Things like tatsoi you can literally harvest from under the snow. There’s a new variety in the Seeds of Change catalog this year called Maruba Santoh that you could try. We’ve grown it a couple of times this year and really love it. It’s fast growing with big leaves, a wide crunchy mid-rib and mild mustard flavor. I bet you could do some amazing things with it. (For more on cold-hardy varieties, see “Extend the Season, Increase Your Harvest” in eNewsletter #51)

PK: I shop at the Organic Market every Wednesday and Saturday when that’s going on. And I have a ton of farmers that just bring us products. We buy from Home Grown Wisconsin, which is an organic coop, and from Growing Power, which is a city farm here in Chicago. From them we buy watercress, land cress…a ton of stuff over the course of the year, baby mustard greens…you name it. There are maybe eight or nine farms we buy from on a regular basis.

There’s a farm cooperative near Normal, Illinois that was started by a woman named Terra Brockman. Her brother has a farm called Henry’s Farm and only sells at the Evanston Farmers’ Market. Their group is called The Land Connection. They have a great group of organic farmers and we’re trying to make it feasible for them to bring stuff into Chicago. It’s a really diverse group of farmers, including some Mennonites. We buy pigs from Wettstein Farms and all kinds of stuff from Henry’s Farm. We did a big benefit for them at the restaurant a couple of years ago to enable them to buy their first parcel of land to keep this thing going. Their idea is to give land to farmers who want to farm it but can’t afford it anymore. And they’re fighting gentrification in their area. They’ve been pretty successful. We’ve worked with them extensively over the years. For that dinner we went out to their farm and slaughtered fifty ducks with them and picked all kinds of produce.

I think that the hallmark of Blackbird is that we try to run the restaurant in a way that is sustainable for the environment but is also sustainable for our suppliers and our employees.

SV: That's great! I know you're busy. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

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