Fall Field Report: Foraging Homestead with Chris Padin & Chef de Cuisine Bradley Herron

Chris, Brad and I on the road in The Redland, an agricultural community about 20 miles or 45 minutes southwest of the restaurant and Downtown Miami, i.e. our local farmland.

This past Friday was a farm day. It was 11 in the morning when I rendezvoused with our forager Chris Padin, for whom biweekly trips to The Redland in Homestead are the routine, and Chef de Cuisine Bradley Herron, who will have run the Miami MGFD kitchen for three years come November. Actually it was a reconnaissance mission more than anything. With the fall upon us and the start of our main growing season in South Florida, it was time for Bradley to check in with our local growers and see the crops first-hand, trade ideas on what we’d like to work on together in the coming months, and have the necessary face time that, as old school and time consuming as it may be, never fails to result in game changing revelations. This is not always possible due to the demands of the kitchen… or the office. But as Bradley had to remind me, when I was tempted by my To Do list to bail, “You gotta make the time or you’ll never go.”

Consequently, Friday was a big day in our little world. Firstly, Michael Borek of Teena’s Pride Farm will begin packing our orders of his gorgeous tomatoes in reusable crates, rather than the farm’s branded cardboard boxes. Less waste, less cost, and more tomatoes per unit, for which he will need to create a new SKU on his price list. Borek will also now provide Bradley with his throwaway tomatoes, i.e. perfectly fine ones that might not pass muster with the packing house, but would find a warm welcome in the MGFD kitchen in beautiful sofrito, tomato sauce, or base for a wood oven skillet of, say, cobia with a toasted sourdough crostini and lemon aioli. Tomatoes are hitting earlier than ever this season thanks to a new wet wall, a cooling system of cellulose pads installed along one side or in the end wall of the greenhouse. The pads are kept wet by a system of pumps and gutters that recirculate water. On the opposite end of the greenhouse is a series of fans to pull air through the greenhouse. As outside air passes through the pads, the water evaporates and as it does so it is cooled. This cool air is pulled across the greenhouse lowering the temperature inside. It aids in growing the tomatoes earlier in the season. Without the wet walls Borek would just be planting now, and it would be January before we saw decent heirlooms!

Of course the day would not have been complete without a zinger or two. What if I told you we out-buy Whole Foods Market stores in South Florida — in season, 800+ pounds of heirlooms, per week? Boom. Please enjoy the gallery below with little nuggets from Borek and other stops made along the way, and check out our Flickr for the full set of pictures. Lots more to come in the coming weeks as the menu reflects the arrival of all these new ingredients and more.

: Chris, Brad and I on the road in The Redland, an agricultural community about 20 miles or 45 minutes southwest of the restaurant and Downtown Miami, i.e. our local farmland.

: Many farms, original clapboard homes of early settlers, u-pick fields and coral rock walls dot the landscape. It is named for the red clay that dominates the area, on top of a massive layer of oolite rock. The entire area is nourished with pure water from the Biscayne Aquifer.

: The main field plot at Teena’s Pride Farm AKA Borek Farms and All Locally Grown Produce. Owner/grower Michael Borek subleases this field for green beans so he can rotate for his some of his tomato crop.

: Workers at Teena’s Pride.

: Walking the green houses with Chris, Brad, and Michael Borek, and Chewy the Chihuahua of course, without whom no Teena’s Pride visit is complete.

: Borek’s pride are heirloom tomatoes like Brandywine, Green Zebra, and Pineapple varieties. Believe it or not, these babies are about two weeks out from being ready to harvest.

: Brad and Chris at Martha’s U-Pick marketplace, set up on the roadside, fronting her fields.

: Cue ball squash come in all color patterns.

: Bradley swiped up all the cue ball squash that Martha had left from her harvest the previous day.

: Seasoning peppers have all the flavor of habaneros but not the heat. They are common in the Caymans, and this was the first time I had seen them here in Miami. Love them shaved on wood oven pizza.

: Local, raw honeycomb.

: Chris and Brad scoping out the fields at Martha’s U-Pick AKA Corona Farms.

: A slim but interesting picking from the farm day arrives at the MGFD kitchen and the creativity begins as the chefs concept new dishes to feature the local product.