Patterson and Kinch to Team Up for Epic Bocuse d’Or Dinner

In December, the Bocuse d’Or USA Foundation announced the 12 semi-finalists for the next team to rep America at the so-called Culinary Olympics. To help raise funds to support the cause, Daniel Patterson—who was invited by Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller to be on the Bocuse council—will be teaming up with fellow Michelin two-star chef David Kinch for a special one-night dinner engagement extravaganza at Coi. Epic? Yes. The pricetag is steep ($195) but then again, it could be the meal of a lifetime (or maybe an early Valentine’s Day treat). The dinner takes place on Monday, February 8, and reservations—which should go quickly—can be made via Coi at 415-393-9000.

The menu, which will have the two chefs alternating courses:

The chefs have some surprises in store, including several amuse bouches, an intermezzo course, and mignardises. Following are the main courses:Assorted Shellfish with Radish and Apple, Seawater (Kinch)

Beet and Goat Cheese Tart (broken, inverted) (Patterson)
rye, dill

Steelhead Trout with Onion and Marrow “Tears,” Chervil Cream (Kinch)

Winter, Pastoral (Patterson)
young carrots roasted on a bed of hay, radish powder, shaved pecorino

Crispy Chicken and Egg Confit, a Roasted Chicken “Dashi,” Black Truffles (Kinch)

Steamed Chicken Breast (Patterson)
wild mushroom porridge, brown butter, wood sorrel

It’s Almost It (Corbett)
chocolate, oatmeal, orange

To emphasize the Foundation’s commitment to sustainability and great American products, a different American heritage breed will be chosen each year. This year’s dinner series celebrates American heritage breed poultry. Patterson and Kinch’s menu will feature poultry from Soul Food Farm.

We’re honored to be chosen for this dinner.

From the review:

Named after the chef’s grandmother, it is a family effort. Perello’s father helped her with the walls and the wood finishing. Her mother sewed the big-buttoned cushions that soften your seat, and worked on the aprons worn by the staff. They are made of a rough-hewn fabric that I mistook for burlap – it’s actually brushed silk.

Perello’s “modern California” cuisine is the same: sounds like burlap, tastes like silk. Chew on applewood-smoked bacon beignets to start, or chickpea fritters with Meyer lemon aioli. Then, for your appetiser, pick the unusual, eggy semolina gnocchi with duck confit. I used to think I hated gnocchi; now I realise that I just hated any gnocchi not made by Melissa Perello

For your main course you should order the beef. Alternatively, you could do what my companions did on both visits and order the Soul Food Farm chicken with savoury bread pudding. They practically licked their plates clean. Now we all understand how Perello earned a Michelin star for Fifth Floor, her previous restaurant.

I’ve eaten at Frances. It really is that good! We hope you’ll all go check it out too!

Alexis had a terrific long interview air in December with KCBS Food Editor Narsai David. He talked to her about the fire, the dismal economics (but joyous rewards!) of raising pastured poultry, and much more. You can listen to it via the Pastured Polutry and Eggs link here or download the MP3.

Alexis and Eric in front of their house. (David La Spina photo for the New York Times Magazine)

Chirstine Muhlke’s profile of Soul Food Farm for the New York Times Magazine just came out this past Sunday, on Thanksgiving weekend. Titled “Field Report: Learning about Community Supported Agriculture the Hard Way,” it focuses on the dismal economics of a small farm like Soul Food, and how something like a comparatively minor fire can almost kill a farm.

From the consumer’s point of view, Soul Food Farm looks as if it’s raking it in: eggs cost up to $8 a dozen, and meat retails at about $6.50 a pound. Outsiders aren’t afraid to voice their opinion. After the fire, an online detractor wrote that the farm should have more than enough cash to rebuild.

If people think that farmers are driving home from the market in BMWs, Koefoed said, “they should go visit the farmer and see how hard they’re actually working.” Even before she laid off two of her three employees after Eric lost his civil-engineering job, the mother of three was rising at dawn and working late to tend to her 8,000 birds, which roost in houses dotted around the scrubby land. Until she bought an egg-washer last year, she cleaned 1,800 a day.

Soul Food Farm operates on razor-thin margins. To bring in extra money, Koefoed is concocting a lavender-products business with a neighbor; plans for a cooking school are in the works; and she began a pilot project in which others raise her meat birds on their land. In October, she started a C.S.A., or community-supported agriculture program, selling her produce to people who might not be able to afford it in restaurants. Cutting out the middleman means she’ll get all of the much-needed proceeds. “This romantic vision of the poor farmer needs to be thrown out!” she said emphatically. “It’s not romantic to be poor. It’s a struggle.”

Naturally, Koefoed would like to struggle less. She’d also like to see the day when people realize that cheap food is a lie, and values have shifted enough so that those who pay $8 for a six-pack of beer or thousands for a plasma TV won’t “gripe about paying $8 for a dozen eggs.” Those dollars go back into the community, she said, not to some corporation raising robo-chicks. “This should really matter, because it’s going into your mouth and fueling your capacity to get through the day,” she said. “Food is the bottom line: we all need to eat every day. Then ultimately aren’t farmers the most important resource we have in this country?”

The article has goosed CSA sign-ups, so quite a few readers seem to agree with her. So did Andrew Simmons, in a warm post over at the SF Weekly blog.

• An epic piece detailing the fire and the community response that followed will appear in an upcoming issue of Edible San Francisco; it’s also posted at Ethicurean.com
• The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about Soul Food Farm’s new CSA for its What’s New column
• John Birdsall, SFoodie Editor, blogged how when life handed Soul Food Farm lemons in the form of legs busted at the USDA slaughterhouse, Alexis decided to turn them into lemonade — or at least chicken leg confit (available starting November 11 to CSA members!)
• UC Berkeley journalism student Melanie Mason reported in a radio piece for Crosscurrents how the Soul Food fire sparked something different than disaster, thanks to friends, family… and Facebook. Click Play: