Do all of Manresa’s vegetables and herbs, or most of them, come from Love Apple Farm?
If it’s on the plate and it’s a vegetable, more than likely it came from the garden (at Love Apple). Certainly in the spring and summertime, but even in the wintertime the majority comes from the garden. We don’t have a lot of fruit there, but chickens, eggs, beehives, honey, all the vegetables, many herbs. How has working with Love Apple Farm and biodynamic gardening changed your cooking, and/or influenced the menu at Manresa? It writes the menu now. When we started transitioning over, it really was the most challenging thing we’ve ever had, professionally, to encounter. Because we didn’t want to waste it, didn’t want to waste any of the produce, so — all of a sudden you have large amounts of beautiful eggplant. And you have to do something with it. So you’re forced to create dishes to use it. It’s not like you’re picking up the phone and ordering eggplant from the produce company. You walk through (the garden)…you see a patch of something that’s growing and growing and getting close
