Hi there. We are “back” after a long, work-induced pause in our blogging. We are planning to blog again more regularly and hopefully post new things from the farm and some “greatest hits” from our restaurant, Timber & Salt. (Timber & Salt is in the awesome town of Redwood City, in Silicon Valley, btw).
Isaac’s Wild Oregon Cod with Butter Bean Ragout, a very good dish from earlier this winter.
In any event, we are well into our third year running Timber & Salt. Happily we can say the food, drinks and service have never been better. We are very busy, reviews are good and the business is a going concern- so we aren’t going anywhere. Just the other day Brian Matulis, our bar manager / partner, and I realized that we have already lasted well beyond the expected “expiration date” of most new restaurants. We enjoyed that for about five seconds and then got back to work.
Melanie Ralston- one of Brian’s more popular creations (Vodka, Bonal, Cherry Heering, lime)
So how did we get to our third year? After a good, but somewhat frantic “bumpy” start, operations at the restaurant finally started to get truly “settled” late in our second year. We brought on Isaac Miller, an experienced chef from a critically acclaimed restaurant in San Francisco called Maven. (Not surprisingly, Maven specializes in seasonal California cuisine that compliments craft cocktails…sound familiar?) Isaac’s management of the kitchen complimented Brian’s already successful bar program and we finally got the restaurant close to what we imagined when we started this project over five (!) years ago. And that feels pretty good, but there is one big thing left to address.
You see we have this “Farm”. At one point it was a really a big garden. But over the last few years we have an experienced friend (Daniel) helping us, and the garden has expanded to the point that it is getting truly “farm-like”. When you have 30+ fruit trees, 10 raised beds, and 4 large open plots, all on a schedule- it starts to feel like a farm (large, organized garden?). And when you have a farm and a restaurant, well, you want to serve up some of that fresh, seasonal, local produce in innovative, tasty dishes and cocktails.
Not to say we haven’t been using produce from the farm at Timber & Salt for the last few years, we have. In no particular order, we consistently use our Meyer lemons, lime leaves, mint, chives, thyme and basil in both the bar and kitchen. We also get lovely “spurts” of tomatoes, squash, greens, onions, radishes, strawberries and stone fruits that make for great eating (and, in some cases, drinking). But overall, the availability of our produce has been inconsistent, at best.
But this year, weather permitting, we have a plan. Our team is working with Daniel and we aim to have a consistent (and abundant) supply of herbs, tomatoes, squash and stone fruit throughout the summer and fall. And we hope to consistently feature some of the best tasting, and truly “local” produce at Timber & Salt over the next few months.
This will not be easy. It’s one thing to plant some stuff that you harvest once a year (past readers may recall dozens of blog posts about what to do with produce from your garden when you get it all at once). But for the restaurant, we are staggering planting times and varietals to make for a longer season and harvest. We expect that this will be a “learning” year…but even with some fits and starts we will have a lot of tasty food to enjoy and share.
We will keep everyone posted on our progress and also let everyone know when dishes at the restaurant are featuring some truly “just-picked” produce. Meanwhile, here are a few pics….
Some of the hundreds of tomato plants we are planting.
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Spring onions….no too impressive to look at, but very sweet and with way more flavor.
Tree Collards. These are so good they may not make it to the restaurant….just our kitchen.
Lettuces, herbs and chard.
White peaches early in their growth. The trees are specially trimmed and tied for easy access.
Putney Farm 