One by Spork

Bread & Butter Service. Something that may sound so simple and overlooked, is something we spend days on. The butter starts with fresh cream from Jersey Hills Dairy, cultured with buttermilk starter and shio koji, cold-fermented for twenty-four hours, then churned until the solids break, strained, washed in ice water, finished clean. The gochujang is brewed from barley and glutinous rice flour, fermented soybean, salt, and Aji Amarillo grown on our farm. Jarred and left alone for three months.

There's a version of every dish that's easier. Pasta that arrives pre-made, herbs from a delivery box, sauces that don't require a whisk. We've never been interested in that version, not because scratch is a selling point, but because the dish tells you when something was made with care and when it wasn't. So does the person eating it.

By the time you sit down, the work is mostly done. The decisions were made the day before. The mise en place was built this morning. The room was set before you arrived. What you walk into isn't a restaurant, it's the result.

288 glasses of wine. 18 seats. One question all night: France or California?

We ran the 50th anniversary rematch of the Judgment of Paris, the 1976 blind tasting that shook the wine world when California beat France in Paris. Seven courses, two glasses each, no labels. Guests scored every pour. Envelopes opened after the last red.

One of the wines on the table was Mayacamas Cabernet from Mt. Veeder, the same mountain, the same winery that competed fifty years ago. The 1976 judges thought it might be Bordeaux.
Sunday's guests had the same experience.

We don't grow it because we have to. We grow it because it changes the way we think about what goes on the table.

A few steps. A few hands. A reason behind every one of them.