National Culinary Review

Other vegetables on Ross’ winter menu are likely to be Swiss chard and a variety of root vegetables with short ribs and polenta. He expects to accompany a pork chop with stewed local beans in demi-glace, along with roasted tomatoes, Tuscan kale, pickled onions and peppers.

Harvest in Madison, Wis., has a longstanding relationship with local farmers who provide everything from cold-frame spinach to pheasant in the winter. “It’s definitely more challenging, but it doesn’t seem that challenging anymore,” says proprietor Tami Lax.

Some of Harvest’s producers store squashes, garlic, onions and root vegetables for the restaurant. To supplement those cold weather crops, the restaurant freezes summer berries and cherries and roasted tomatoes for accompaniments through the end of March. Other products the restaurant processes to use in the winter are apple and pear butters and ciders and maple and sorghum syrups.

Two dishes Harvest is likely to again serve this winter are breast of pheasant, glazed with honey and blackcurrant and accompanied by spinach, gold turnips and blackcurrant sauce; and pan-roasted pork loin chop with red-wine-braised cabbage, potato parsnip galette and apple/juniper sauce.

local when it makes sense Beatrice & Woodsley in Denver uses local ingredients in winter “as much as possible when it makes sense, and organic, except when it’s prohibitively expensive or the quality is not as good,” explains Pete List, executive chef.

Colorado lamb and other local meats are available in winter. Produce is List’s biggest challenge, although he is able to depend on greenhouse tomatoes, spinach and greens, as well as potatoes, onions, winter squash and pumpkins.

Some of the dishes he plans to serve in late winter are herb and garlic roasted leg of lamb with rustic ratatouille, sweet onion soubise and corona bean brodo; and whole roasted Colorado striped bass (farm-raised) larded with garlic and served with housemade merguez sausage, green spelt, braised greens, preserved lemons and tomato syrup.

A few of List’s dishes are made with his many vegetarian customers in mind. One winter favorite is his winter squash mole—spiced winter squash, pickled beets and chevre. The

squash mixture is surrounded by mole negro and candied pumpkin and sesame seeds.

Chefs also are realistic about just how local they really can be when surrounded by frozen ground. “People are dreaming if they think you are not affected by weather,” says Carole Peck, chef/owner of the Good News Café and Zeeburger in Woodbury, Conn.

The rule of thumb that only ingredients produced within a 100-mile radius of your restaurant can be considered local needs to be expanded, Peck says. For instance, she considers her wild-caught salmon from Nova Scotia and smoked salmon from Maine to be local.

Helping her stay local at least in early winter are farmers who provide cold storage for hardy vegetables and apples and greenhouses to grow lettuces.

Cassoulet is one winter dish Peck makes in three variations: regular with local duck, vegan with local dried beans and seitan, and vegetarian with black beans. She serves her grilled salmon in the winter with braised celery root, leeks and kale in carrot broth.

producers understand goals Farm-raised game, such as elk, is a popular winter dish at Forage in Salt Lake City. Co-chef Bowman Brown serves various cuts with preserved wild berries, along with celeriac. Brown grills trout from a small local farm on juniper embers and accompanies it with wild parsnips, fresh cream and pickled edible flowers. He is able to store savoy cabbage until April in his root cellar. One preparation is to accent it with smoked butter and toasted grains.

Desserts also incorporate local ingredients at Forage: winter squash sorbet with yogurt and dried honey, textures of potato with salted caramel ice cream, and preserved pear with parsnip ice cream and coffee.

“We have very good farmers/producers that we work with who understand our goal and go to lengths to keep our pantry stocked all year,” Brown says. “This means traveling back in time 150 years and thinking how the folks back then thought, which is summed up by simply, ‘Plan ahead’.”