Onions and Avetts

(Music plays) Scallions are so much more than the green stuff scattered on top of your loaded baked potato.

Spring onions, green onions, scallions, whatever you want to call them, are the first sign of a new season.

The very first green indicator of all the good stuff to come.

(Theme Music plays- The Avett Brothers "Will You Return") I'm Vivian and I'm a chef.

My husband, Ben and I were working for some of the best chefs in New York City when my parents offered to help us open our own restaurant.

Of course, there was a catch.

We had to open this restaurant in Eastern North Carolina, where I grew up and said I would never return.

(Theme Music Plays) (Theme Music Plays) So this is my life.

Raising twins, living in the house I grew up in, and exploring the south, one ingredient at a time.

(Music plays) Previously on A Chef's Life.

I am trying to write and deliver a cookbook by January.

So, I've got a little shot list and I've never done this before.

There ya go.

That's the money shot.

I'm going to meet my new editor this morning.

When you're focused on the book, how much of your head is back in the kitchen?

My life the past year has taken me out of the daily workings of the restaurant.

You know, I'm feeling a little weird because I don't work at Chef & the Farmer every day anymore and I feel kind of like a fish out of water.

It's a very strange feeling.

(birds chirping) (Music plays) So just basically, how did all this start?

How did Chef & the Farmer begin?

We were living in New York and working and struggling.

We had a little soup business out of our apartment where we made soup and delivered around the city.

This was before the food truck.

We were ahead of our time.

So, your parents say come to Kinston?

It eventually ended up that it was Kinston, yes.

And what did you think about that?

We were skeptical at first but we saw that the downtown had a lot of really cool bones and we felt like it had a lot of potential and we felt like we were going to be able to... Have an impact.

Have an impact on the community.

When you were starting were you nervous?

Were you like, gah can we make it in Kinston, North Carolina?

We didn't really think about it.

We thought, yeah we can make it.

We were I guess young and naive and not afraid.

And we worked really hard to do that.

So, do you feel like you all have grown?

Like, have you learned a lot?

Oh yeah!

What have you learned?

Yeah, I mean as a chef I've learned that it's not all about what I want and what I make and about, you know, my ego.

Are you still having fun is my question?

I don't know if I've ever had fun.

Sorry.

Don't put that on there, please!

(Laughter) (Music plays) Stop!

Stop!

Stop!

Stop!

Wait, wait, wait, you gotta put your... Stop!

Stop!

Stop!

Stop!

Where is the cheese going?

Oh.

(Laughter) I take that back.

I do have fun.

Sometimes.

(Laughter) (Music plays) Tomorrow, I am leaving for Concord, which is in the western part of the state.

We're doing a fundraiser for the Lomax Incubator Farm.

Everybody says what's an incubator farm?

They think we're hatching chickens or something.

But no, we're hatching farmers.

Sorry, that wasn't funny at all.

(Laughter) (Music plays) An incubator farm is a working farm that allows young aspirational farmers the opportunity to grow food and sell it.

These people don't have their own land.

They haven't necessarily farmed before.

And the incubator farm gives them all the tools they need to do that job.

And the most exciting part about this is that we're doing the dinner with the Avett Brothers.

I love the farmers and all but that part is really exciting.

A friend of mine, Craig Rogers is going to be cooking a lamb on a spit.

We're gonna do a charred, spring onion chimichurri with the lamb.

The whole idea kind of behind the dinner is a reimagined pig picking.

Umm, I guess a lamb picking.

We're gonna approach this a little bit differently because we will be going out on the farm and seeing what they have and according to the farm manager, Aaron, what's really shining right now are the spring onions or scallions.

So, we're gonna do several things with those.

Green onions or spring onions or scallions are somewhere between leeks and a regular onion.

If you were to leave a scallion in the ground it would eventually produce a bulb that would remind you of a regular onion.

They have wonderful flavor that adds a ton of character to lots of baked dishes and I love to grill them.

One of the things I'm gonna serve and put together there is this like spring onion gratin.

So, it's gonna be spring onions, tarragon and garlic steeped cream, some bread cubes, and some cheese all baked together.

And it will be comforting and warm.

It will probably be the only warm thing we serve.

(Music plays) We generally think of onions as a building block for a dis, but scallions can really be the centerpiece of a dish because they have such a mild, pleasant aroma, texture, and flavor that I like to see them more out in front than in the background.

So, I've got my little casserole scenario started hee and I've taken this heavy cream and I've steeped it with tarragon and garlic.

I like the combination of tarragon and onions and I think tarragon says spring.

I'm gonna put a little pecorino romano, which is softer and saltier than parmesan cheese.

I need something to kind of make my gratins hold together so I've got egg here but because this cream mixture is really hot I can't add my egg straight away to it or it will scramble so I have to do something called temper it.

And that basically introduces a little bit of this hot mixture at a time and it brings both mixtures to a more equal temperature.

And I'm gonna add my little bread cubes.

Then, I'm just gonna pour this over my spring onions so they end up like baking in the cream and getting all creamy.

(Music plays) So, has John mentioned anything to you about a new dish?

Not yet, Chef.

Okay.

We've done something like this before with just squash and zucchini.

My whole idea was like pasta primavera, but not pasta primavera, you know?

(Laughter) If you haven't figured it out by now I love to celebrate unsung vegetables.

I've long been fascinated by the idea of a pasta primavera.

So for this dish I'm using squash and zucchini and carrots as noodles instead of traditional pasta and punching it all up with spring onions.

So, you're gonna shave these into noodles and then once you get to the seed portion, stop.

Same thing with the carrots.

They're gonna be a noodle too.

So this is what you're looking for for the carrot noodles.

So then you're gonna take the spring onions and these are all gonna get kind of wilted in the pan with a little bit of butter and then we're gonna finish it with crab, lemon juice, really thinly sliced jalapenos, and mint.

And it should be very pretty.

(Music plays) I'd like to think that I'm a pretty clear teacher, but lots of times when I think I've perfectly explained a technique and then I follow up to find they've done something completely different, I have to question my leadership and teaching skills.

That clearly happened here.

So, the idea was like pappardelle noodles, you know like wide, flat.

See like this, it looks like a bad vegetable medley.

I should have come up here and checked.

I don't know.

Let me go think about it.

Yeah, what do you think?

It looks okay but..

It looks like a vegetable medley.

Well I don't want that.

So, let's just go with the crudo small plate.

We'll work on this some more.

I hate it when we work on something and somebody spends a lot of time prepping something and then it doesn't pan out to go on the menu, but I can't put something that looks like a vegetable medley from a chain on.

So... (Music plays) I think it's good.

I just have too much egg in it and it needs to cook a little longer.

That's why you test things.

(birds chirping) (Music plays) When we first started talking about this incubator farm I'm not gonna lie, I thought we were gonna roll p on a whole bunch of chickens, but I was thrilled to see that it's actually a vegetable farm and I feel very privileged to be able to have my pick of whatever I want.

Hey.

Aaron Newton.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Let me show you around and tell you a little bit about what we're about.

We'll go around and I can kind of let you know what we would like to collect for tomorrow too.

Is that possible?

Sure.

So, this is a hot house.

We're just really trying to get a jump on the season.

So, if they're hitting the market a month before everybody else with field crops that gives them a market advantage so they're sort of simultaneously learning production technique but also the marketing in terms of business.

So, we started big beef tomatoes and we planted seeds on the fifteenth of January.

That's why we have tomatoes closing in on four feet tall.

Yeah, these tomatoes are huge for right now.

We're going to do a fried green tomato.

Awesome.

So I just need like five pounds of them or something.

Okay.

Most of the, do I call them students?

We call them farmers in training.

Farmers in training.

We call them FITS for short.

Oh really.

Yeah.

Are they young?

The age right now is young.

Our youngest farmer in training is 22.

With the median age of a farmer being 59, our mission is to try and push that down.

I think farming is kind of like cooking in a restaraunt.

For one, you need to do something like this because it looks a lot different from the outside than what it actually is.

Magazines like Modern Farmer make it look...

Very sexy and sparkly, but it's not sexy and sparkly.

No.

(Laughter) It's sweaty and dirty and long hours and... And hard.

You work when other people are playing.

Yes.

Can we walk toward the onion patch?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So, what's your background?

Are you a farmer?

No, I did train here for a couple of years, but my background is in landscape architecture.

I used to turn farm fields into subdivisions.

Oh!

Yeah.

So now I'm doing my penance right... Yeah.

You're not the first person I've interviewed like that.

Do you have any female FITS?

When we first started we had more female FITS than male FITS.

If you were to arrive here from another planet, the average farmer on planet earth is a woman of color farming less than five acres.

That's what a farmer really looks like on planet earth, on average.

This is the onions.

These are Ben's onions.

So, these are what you would call scallions?

Yeah.

The really interesting thing to me is Ben, this is brand new to him.

This is his first year farmin.

He started these.

We told him not to, but he wanted to give it a try.

He did.

He was clearly successful and to do that gives me hope.

It's impressive.

Yeah.

So why are onions advanced?

They're so small and wispy when they come up.

Once you get them planted in there, these tiny little wispy thing, they are really hard to weed because you're getting in between all of these onions without hurting them.

See that little guy?

Uh huh.

That's the size they go in the grown.

Oh wow.

So, imagine trying to weed this and that and all these other things without taking that out.

Yeah forget it.

And thousands of them.

So, these are true scallions.

They do not have a bulb, but if you were to leave these in the ground they will bulb out.

They will bulb out if we let them or we can pick them and use them now.

Well, these are the perfect size for what I'm doing.

Awesome.

(Music plays) How are you?

I'm well.

How are you?

I'm good.

I'm Vivian.

Ben.

Nice to meet you.

So, this is your stuff right here?

This is my stuff right here.

How did you come to farming?

Did you grow up on a farm?

No.

No.

I grew up in the suburbs of DC and I moved down here three years ago.

I got a job and I was laying in bed one night and I thought to myself that I didn't want to spending my whole life sitting in front of a computer screen and I thought that night that maybe I could try my hand at farming the right way.

And are you enjoying it?

I am.

I'm having a great time.

And Aaron said that you started all these onions from seed.

I just bought some onion seeds and thought I'd try them out and they are doing really well and I'm pleased.

They are.

They are and they're perfect for what I want to do tomorrow.

Well good.

Do you think we could get twenty pounds tomorrow?

Yeah.

We're going to use the greens and the bulb and I'm gonna have them in three different dishes so that's why.

Okay.

It's gonna be an oniony experience.

Alright, alright.

Awesome.

(Music plays) I have to say the vegetable experience at Lomax was pretty incredible, but the best part about the entire event were all the war, generous, kind, enthusiastic people we met.

These young farmers are good people.

(Music plays) We are most fortunate to have Vivian Howard, who is a celebrated chef.

Vivian is here in Concord as the guest chef at a dinner party tonight being thrown by Concord native, Scott Avett, the founder and star of the Avett Brothers.

Scott, tell us about this dinner and what you're expecting to happen here tonight.

Yep.

So, this all first started when Lomax Incubator Farm lost funding and I wanted to help.

The idea came up that if Vivian could do it, it would be amazing.

Have you told Scott what you're cooking and why?

I'm very curious about this.

Ummm, so we're doing kind of a reimagined pig picking.

Craig Rogers from Border Springs Farm is cooking a lamb on a spit and we're celebrating the vegetables of early spring.

Are you going to sing anything?

I think it's going to be a really fun night and I think music should be part of that.

The cavalry's arrived.

How are you, Beth?

I'm good.

Looks like last night was awful.

Umm yeah it was not good.

This one guy said that the service was terrible and the food was terrible and he's never coming back.

I don't think it's anything you need to worry too much about.

I mean, of course you're gonna worry.

I was worried too...

I just hate...I don't know, I just hate it when people travel and then they get there and they hate it.

The more I'm away the more I realize that I have very little control over what happens at Chef & the Farmer, but I have decided that at this point in my life that there are things I want more than controlling everything at the restaurant.

I'm going to start a fire so we can get the lamb on the spit.

I have a flame thrower.

I think it sounds great.

(Music plays) Yay!

Yay!

Yay!

Yay!

That's beautiful.

I'll grab the rest of it.

Okay.

I'm gonna have you help me with the strawberries.

Okay.

So, you're gonna make the hushpuppies.

Troy, If there are more spring onions will you wash them?

We're gonna grill a lot of these.

It's nice to have a lot of help today.

My friend Troy is a television personality who I met doing a demo on a local Charlotte station.

He is a chef and a cookbook author who just published his first book, Pseudo Southern.

I'm not looking at anyone's cookbook now though.

I don't blame you.

Especially mine.

I'm scared of accidentally copying somebody.

Well, I'd be flattered.

You wouldn't sue me?

Well, it depends on how many you sold.

(Laughter) Craig Rogers, who refers to himself as a shepherd, is what I would describe as the lamb spokesperson for the southeast.

A 55 pound beauty.

When we're done the idea is for the lamb to be in the superman position.

Right.

So if you hold it down I'm going to take the wire.

Give it a little massage of olive oil.

A little kosher salt.

What do you think, Chef?

It looks good.

Took me eight months to get it here.

Now, it's going to be up to you to make sure it's great on the plate.

Mmm!

Smells like onions in here.

So, what's going in the gratin there?

So, I'm just gonna test one.

I tested one at the restaurant and it had egg in it and I didn't like the texture so I'm going to test one without egg.

This is cream that I steeped with tarragon and garlic and we're gonna bake it.

These potatoes are taking forever.

Do they not have a hood vent?

No, that's what I'm saying.

This is... Oh my God!

I'm afraid I might have to have to cook my cornbread outside.

I don't know.

What's the point?

I know.

Why don't I just put them right on the coals?

Coals.

Yeah.

And we're running.

This house is beautiful but this stove is not meant to cook dinner for more than four people.

That oven's not really very helpful.

I'm nothing if I'm not resourceful.

So, we decided to cook the cornbread, the onions, everything we possibly can on this big fire.

(Laughter) It's hot.

Hey Joe.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

We're hot actually.

But it's good.

(Cello plays) (Cello plays) It clears the soul.

Clearly the cello has its happiness or sadness and for the longest time I thought it was so much easier to play dark on a dark instrument.

But it's true, there's like a sadness behind the sound even in a happy song there's some melancholy.

Yeah, very true.

I think this is gonna be a really nice evening (The Avett Brothers play song) So, what time do we start passing hors d'oeuvres, Beth?

Seven o'clock.

Okay, thirty minutes.

(The Avett Brothers play song) I could clog right now.

I'm not going to though.

So, these are our fried green tomatoes with pecan butter and a green strawberry chutney.

Fried green tomatoes with "pee-con" butter... "Pee-can" I'm just kidding.

(Laughter) (The Avett Brothers play song) (Scott Avett sings) (The Avett Brothers play song) Tonight there are farmers who grew some of what we're going to be enjoying tonight.

Ben Street, who grew the onions.

(Applause) (Music plays) I'm feeling very lucky just to be a little part of this whole thing so thank you for letting me and thank you for all the support from everybody.

Have a great night and uhhh, enjoy!

Tonight, we're gonna be eating a very loosely based rendition of a pig picking because we're going to be eating lamb so we're going to highlight the wonderful produce from Lomax Farm.

(Scott Avett sings) We're gonna have a beautiful bright salad.

We're gonna have some green onions baked in a tarragon cream like a casserole.

Then, we're going to finish out with a take on a pig picking cake.

But I just wanted to say that I feel really strongly about this because in our culture today we have this idea of chef worship.

But really, I would like for s to focus more on the people who grow our food and farmer worship.

I know it's a lot of hard work.

I grew up with farmer parents and I always said I would never marry a farmer.

(Laughter) Sorry.

Okay.

(Laughter) I'm gonna go cook.

Thank you.

(Applause) Oh my God!

Why did I say that?

(Laughter) I talk too much.

Is that for the lamb?

Yeah.

It's a charred scallion chimichurri.

Yeah, you can do that.

I'll figure it out as soon as I see what it tastes like.

What happens if it's horrible?

It's not going to be.

Oh okay alright, I was just wondering if you ever think about those sorts of things?

Oh I do but I trust you.

(Music plays) I tired to put spring onions in every part of this meal.

Sometimes they're the star like in the gratin and sometimes they're a supporting player like in the lamb.

Ben, do you mind if I serve you some of your onions?

No, not at all.

Yeah!

The gratin.

Yes, the spring onion gratin.

Very fantastic.

Excuse me.

I don't want to burn you.

That would be bad for my career.

(Laughter) Vivian, it's so good.

I don't usually say this at the end of events, but this was really fun.

The people from Lomax are some of the most kind, warm, and generous people I have ever met.

And the Avett Brothers, we basically had a private concert from them so that was obviously super cool.

And that gratin.

I'm going to do that again, again, and again.

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