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FROM VINE TO PLATE
BYLINE: Dale Rice American-Statesman staff  
DATE: August 22, 2007
PUBLICATION: Austin American-Statesman (TX)
EDITION: Final
SECTION: LIFESTYLE
PAGE: F01

It's amazingly easy for Eastside Cafe founders Dorsey Barger and Elaine Martin to name the dish that epitomizes their restaurant, a pioneer in the chef's garden movement.

On the surface, it's a simple one: Caesar salad.But it's simple in name only. Although it features the traditional dressing and croutons, this Caesar isn't built around Romaine lettuce alone. The Eastside version combines oak leaf lettuce, arugula, Romaine, spinach, tatsoi, mizuna, endive and several specialty greens such as cinnamon Romaine ... all picked fresh that morning from the garden behind the Manor Road restaurant. And it's not a one-day or one-week special on the menu. "We do it for months, usually December through February," says Martin, the chef. It's a manual labor of love that puts Eastside Cafe among a small but growing cadre of restaurants with gardens where the chefs grow vegetables, fruit, herbs and flower garnishes that can be harvested as needed, usually the day they are going to be used on the plate. One advantage is the freshness. "You can't believe how delicate these greens are," Barger says. But a restaurant garden offers more than just-picked veggies or floral decorations. The garden, Martin and Barger say, connects the kitchen staff and the diners to the growing process. "It's a visible, tangible, physical connection between the produce and the work that goes into it," Barger says. To see something growing, she says, encourages respect for the ingredients. Often it provides an education for those who aren't familiar with the way the plants grow, such as the fuzzy vines that produce squash. Gardening, Martin says, increased her respect for farmers, particularly when she realized how many variables they have to deal with that are out of their control. Eastside got a taste of that this summer, when heavy rains and cloudy days basically decimated the 90 heirloom tomato plants that they expected would produce a major crop as in past years. That was a sad occurrence; heirloom tomatoes are the favorite garden item of both Eastside owners. "They're great," Barger says. "It's no contest." "To me," Martin says, "they're the ultimate accomplishment: to have people taste what a tomato can be." Beyond the taste, patrons and kitchen hands alike who spend time in the garden can also see what it takes to keep a garden vibrant and healthy, including the compost piles. Eastside Cafe composts all its vegetable waste, such as the ends of carrots and potato peels. In the more than 19 years Martin and Barger have had the restaurant, they've never thrown any prep scraps away. Consequently there are big beds of compost at different stages of decomposition (sometimes smelling riper than a rotten tomato). Composting and the garden itself were inherited from their predecessor, Carla Blumberg, whose restaurant, Carla's, was in the same building. As the story goes, Blumberg, who had an organic farm near Bertram, brought in a backhoe and dug huge trenches, which she filled with compost and soil brought by the truckload from her farm. That provided a great foundation for what Martin and Barger do today. It also helped make them a part of the eat-locally movement. Although the vast majority of vegetables they serve are obtained from conventional growers ... a matter of necessity because of the large amounts consumed ... their garden emphasizes the quality and value of locally produced ingredients. "And it doesn't get any more local than our backyard," Barger says. But growing things themselves wasn't enough; they wanted to contribute in other ways to the movement. So they began offering monthly classes that combine gardening lessons, dining and wine tasting. In September, for example, the class will be about growing an Asian-inspired garden. "We have two years worth of people who came to our classes and now grow their own gardens," Barger says. That's a lot of practical education, with plenty of practical experience behind it. Based on that experience, there are things they would never plant again. Corn tops the list. It may be neat to look at, but it is the "single worst use of space" they've ever devoted to a vegetable at Eastside, Barger says. A huge plot yielded about 10 ears, she says. That same issue got asparagus banned as well. The "two asparagi we got" weren't worth the effort, Martin says, chuckling. Finally, they'll never plant amaranth again, not because of the low yield, but because of the opposite. It was so prolific that it practically took over the garden, and Martin complains they were pulling it up for years afterward. So they'll stick to vegetables with a better production value. After all, using them as part of the meal is what it's all about. "It's great," Martin says, "to be able to walk out to the garden, see what looks great and then use it." drice@statesman.com; 445-3859 Snow Peas 3/4 lb. snow peas, ends snipped 1 Tbsp. butter 1 tsp. fresh garlic, minced 1 tsp. fresh ginger, minced 1 Tbsp. fresh cilantro, minced 1 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar 1 Tbsp. yellow bell pepper, minced 1 Tbsp. red bell pepper, minced 1/4 tsp. salt Fill a 4-quart saucepan half full of water. Bring the water to a full rolling boil. When water is boiling, add snow peas and blanch for 1 minute. Drain the snow peas in a colander and immediately plunge them in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Drain peas and dry them well. Melt butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and sauté for 2 minutes. Add cilantro, rice wine vinegar and snow peas. Stir to combine ingredients. Add yellow and red bell peppers and salt. Combine well and serve. Serves: 4. Roasted Poblano Basil Cream for Pasta 3 large poblano peppers, roasted, peeled, seeded and diced 2/3 cup heavy cream 1/2 tsp. fresh garlic, minced 2 green onions, minced 1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice 1/3 cup vegetable stock 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper 1/3 cup fresh minced basil 2 Tbsp. fresh minced tomatoes Combine poblano peppers, cream, garlic, green onions, lime juice, vegetable stock, salt and pepper in a blender. Blend until smooth. Place in a saucepan and simmer for 20 minutes. Add basil off the heat. Use with your favorite pasta. Garnish with fresh minced tomatoes. Stuffed Heirloom Tomatoes 1 cup bread crumbs 1 cup feta cheese, crumbled 1/4 cup fresh basil, minced 2 tsp. fresh garlic, minced 4 Tbsp. butter, melted 6 large heirloom tomatoes Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine bread crumbs, feta cheese, basil and garlic in a mixing bowl. Add butter and toss to combine. Core tomatoes and remove a 1/8 inch slice from the bottom of each tomato and slice in half. Press 2 heaping tablespoons of filling onto each tomato half. Place on cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes. Makes 12 servings. Recipes from chef Elaine Martin, Eastside Cafe (BOX) Eastside Cafe's harvest - by the seasons Spring/summer Heirloom tomatoes Green beans Zucchini Yellow squash Jalapeños Bell peppers Serranos Poblanos Tabasco peppers Eggplant Cucumbers Tatuma squash Butternut squash Basil (multiple varieties) Marigolds Daylilies New potatoes Perennial Kaffir lime Bay tree Peppermint Spearmint Lemon grass Malabar spinach Oregano Parsley Texas tarragon (Mexican marigold mint) Fall plantings Garlic Green onions Tomatoes Basil Sugar snap peas Snow peas Leeks Radishes Beets Fava beans Winter Romaine lettuce Oak leaf lettuce Red oak leaf lettuce Tatsoi Arugula Mizuna Spinach Flowers for garnish, color, bee attraction and pest repulsion in the garden Pansies Snap dragons Dianthus Violas Vines to provide color and attract bees Coral vine Morning glory Black-eyed Susan Purple hyacinth vine


Larry Kolvoord photos AMERICAN-STATESMAN Dorsey Barger, left, and Elaine Martin grow some of the produce that ends up on the table. Marigolds (top left), Malabar spinach and roma tomatoes are in the cafe's garden. A stuffed heirloom tomato, below, appears on the menu in season. Larry Kolvoord photos American-Statesman In the fall, the Eastside Cafe harvests snow peas for dishes like this one, which has red bell pepper and cilantro. Basil and lemon grass are among the edibles that can thrive in the Central Texas climate.