Friday, October 17th at Sardella's Italian Restaurant Newport RI A special dinner to benefit Potter League for Animals Special Guest Chef Rhode Island Chief Justice Frank Williams
Saturday, October 18th at the new Tastings: A Wine Experience Mystic CT with Creekstone Farms 100% Black Angus Beef
Friday, October 24th Bruce's Tasting Tour at Temple Downtown Restaurant Providence Renaissance Hotel Four Listeners Win Dinner with Bruce Listen for details
Saturday, October 25th Talking Wine at Busa Wine and Spirits 1325 Post Road Warwick RI with Cabot Cheese
Saturday, November 1st Bruce's Tasting Tour at The Barking Crab Newport RI Four Listeners Win Dinner with Bruce Listen for Details
"Don't forget to try the house dressing!"
Dining Out with Bruce Newbury In PROVIDENCE BUSINESS NEWS THE FARMER AND THE CHEF Green is not what one thinks of as a fall color. But a basket of green tomatoes heralded autumn to chef Brian Kingsford of Bacaro one recent morning. They were in a single basket amidst dozens containing fat red ones, all just picked and resting in the barn of Confreda Farms in Cranston. Kingsford pointed and exclaimed, “That’s it! Those green tomatoes tell me the season is changing!” It is toward the end of the season that the green tomatoes are brought in without worry about their appearance. “They ripen green on the vine due to less sunlight. They are fully ripe but with a completely different flavor than the reds. They have a pleasant tangy green-apple flavor to them.”The chef comes out to the farm almost daily. Kingsford, like many local chefs, finds menu planning conflicted this time of year. “Our menus get a little bit of an identity crisis as far as the seasons go,” he says. “My job today is to pick up produce for tonight’s working menu. But I also have an obligation to move forward and look at next week’s menu and the week after.” This morning he was looking over butternut and acorn squash when farmer Vin Confreda spotted him and pointed out some sugar pumpkins which had been picked just hours earlier. Kingsford left with two bushel baskets full in addition to his regular order of squash blossoms, eggplant, corn, tomatoes and basil. What does he have in mind for them at his rustic Italian bistro on the Providence riverfront? “We’ll take these pumpkins and line them around the building along with some fall mums for now. But by next week, these will be part of the menu.” He envisions them everywhere on his menu, from pastas to desserts. Kingsford might caramelize them (cut them in wedges and pan-sear until soft and sugars come to the surface and bubble, then crust over) and make a salad with them.The relationship between the chef and the farmer is key among chefs such as Kingsford who practice this “farm-to-table” philosophy.European in origin, the beginnings of the movement are generally traced back to Berkeley, California. In 1971 chef Alice Waters opened a restaurant and took in just enough fresh produce for the day’s menu from farmers in the surrounding area, which was revolutionary in fine dining circles at the time. Kingsford says Confreda has as much to do with his menu as the chef himself. On the menu, Confreda Farms’ name is listed in the description of each dish with the fresh produce as an ingredient. Confreda is quick to credit the chef with being at the forefront of promoting agriculture in his restaurant. A frequent diner at Bacaro, Confreda has high praise for Kingsford’s menu, declaring, “It always tastes fresh.”There is another aspect to Kingsford and Confreda’s farm-to-table mission- education. A school program which shows elementary students the relationship between farm and food called “Days of Taste” was started almost a decade ago. One of the first chefs to sign on was Brian Kingsford, who brought the kids to Confreda’s farm. The farmer and the chef are teaming up this fall to educate grownups about farm fresh cooking. Kingsford will conduct cooking classes on Saturdays at the farm located on Scituate Avenue in the village of Hope.The word has spread far beyond Rhode Island. Several years ago while wintering in Florida, Confreda suggested to a chef who ran a restaurant near his home there that he bring in fresh produce from area farmers and list it on his menu. The following winter, Confreda returned to the restaurant to see if his advice had been taken. The chef rushed out of the kitchen beaming, “[Your suggestion] has brought us to a whole new level! Customers are requesting dishes made with the produce from our farms!”Kingsford is not the first chef in the state to develop a close relationship with growers of local produce. In fact, he credits George Germon and Johanne Killeen of Al Forno with pioneering the “farm-to-table” movement in the area. Other early practitioners were Maureen Pothier of the long shuttered Blue Point restaurant, Casey Riley of the Newport Restaurant Group and Bruce Tillinghast who opened New Rivers in Providence in 1990. Tillinghast has invited the local farmers he buys from to dinner at his restaurant this fall so his customers can become better acquainted with them. He explains why in my next column.
CHEFS BEHAVING WELL No businessperson gets asked to give more donations than a chef or restaurateur. And none of them are complaining. After all, it is called the hospitality industry and it consistently lives up to its name.All year long, restaurant owners and chefs extend help, from the neighborhood pizza place that sponsors the Little League team to full-scale nourishment of rescue workers during natural or man-made disasters. Two weeks before the spate of hurricanes that threatened the U.S. earlier this month, the National Restaurant Association threw two benefits to help recovery and rebuilding efforts in New Orleans to kick off both the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Dawn Sweeney, President and CEO of the Friends of New Orleans Association, said, "Serving the communities in which they operate comes naturally to restaurants.” Locally, there are many chefs giving back to their community and supporting their industry this fall.At lunchtime this Wednesday, September 17th, the interesting paradox of eating well to help those who do not have enough to eat will take place outside the Hotel Providence. A simple meal of soup and bread from 16 downtown restaurants and 3 bakeries will be served at the fifth annual Hunger Banquet. Tables will be set up on the sidewalks in front of the hotel on Westminster and Mathewson Streets. A variety of soups will be served by an eclectic group of restaurants from Aspire at the Hotel Providence-the host for the event-to Ma’s Kitchen. The soups will be accompanied by fresh-baked breads from Panera, DeFusco’s and Scialo Bros. bakeries. The price for the all-you-can-eat lunch is ten dollars which includes a souvenir mug. Proceeds will benefit two food programs in the city. One is at the PoverelloCenter on Hartford Avenue. The other is an outreach program which provides a sandwich lunch to homeless people in the downtown area. Called Bread and Blessings, it recently relocated to the BeneficientChurch on Weybosset Street. It had previously been at St. Francis Chapel, which also recently moved. Tickets to the Hunger Banquet are available at St. Francis which is now located at 275 Westminster Street. They are also available at the event which runs from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Wednesday.The next night, Thursday, September 18th, several notable chefs from throughout Rhode Island will get together to help the March of Dimes atthe seventh annual Signature Chef’s Auction at Belle Mer in Newport. Honored as this year’s Signature Chef will be Jeffrey Carroll, executive chef of Napa Valley Grille. Featured will be tastings from 19 area restaurants. Serving their specialties will be Gracie’s, whose own executive chef Joe Hafner, last year’s honoree, will present this year’s award; New Rivers, CAV, Chez Pascal, Castle Hill Inn and Resort, Eleven Forty-Nine, Bacaro, Hemenway’s, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Waterman Grille, Waterplace Restaurant and Lounge, Hotel Viking, Trattoria Sympatico, 41 North, Belle Mer, Temple and Camille’s. Proceeds will benefit the March of Dimes mission to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and premature birth.Furthering the prestige of local chefs, Dan Scannell, executive chef at the Carnegie Abbey Club in Portsmouth is gearing up for a challenge of Olympic proportions. The 2008 International Culinary Olympics will be held in October in Germany, and a select few American chefs have ever won a Gold Medal in the nearly 50-year history of the competition. For four days, the world's best chefs are challenged to prove their culinary skills and vie for gold medals. Culinary Team USA is defending its title of World Champion in hot-food cooking. Six chefs, all members of the prestigious American Culinary Federation, make up the American team. Scannell is one of three certified master chefs and the only New Englander on the team. Much like the Olympics, the culinary competition is considered the most prestigious in the industry.In a world where it seems few good works take place without a spotlight or at least a member of the media to record them, these are just a few examples of how chefs and restaurateurs are practicing the true definition of the word “restaurant”- a place to restore oneself. They are doing it as the woman from New Orleans said, by doing what comes naturally.
© 2008