|
 |
The menu at Daily Harvest Catering in Emeryville, California, is always evolving, but one thing remains constant: Chef Ryan Goldsmith and his team create some of the most amazing vegan cuisine you'll ever taste. Daily Harvest's catered parties and individually boxed lunches highlight the best of the season's locally grown organic foods-from sweet crepes filled with organic strawberries and topped with fresh blueberry sauce to polenta lasagna with roasted seasonal vegetables.
For information, visit Daily Harvest's Web site.
|
Chef Spotlight: Ryan Goldsmith
Restaurant: Daily Harvest Catering
Chef: Ryan Goldsmith
Position: Owner and Chef
Age: 28
Q. How long have you been a chef?
A. I've been a chef since I became vegan in 1995. My first gig was cooking at a vego caf at a music and dance conservatory in Lismore, NSW, Australia. After getting my degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture at U.C. Santa Cruz, I found myself in NYC for periods and would work at various organic/vegan places-all of which led me to the Natural Gourmet Cookery School in Manhattan. I have run Daily Harvest as a business since the end of 2002.
Q. Do you have companion animals?
A. Yes, my dog Corey-he's a golden retriever-collie mix, rescued from Bear Mountain Dog Rescue in southern California. He's a 7-year-old, 101-pound chortling "Deetle." We've been from forest living to farm life to city living in our time-and looking forward to stepping back to farm life shortly.
Q. What type of cuisine do you focus on?
A. I focus on and specialize in fresh food. I live and thrive in the Bay Area of California, where organic growers produce incredible raw materials that I strive to celebrate in delicious, exciting, well-rounded cuisine. Mediterranean, Thai, and Latin cookery inspire me to accentuate a variety of colors, textures, temperatures, and flavors when using fresh, locally grown food.
Q. What are the most important elements in cooking great vegetarian cuisine?
A. Vegetarian cuisine needs to be elementally satisfying-both filling for the belly, as well as nutritious for the body. It's essential to use a wholesome variety of proteins, like fresh shell beans in the late summer in an herby braise with the season's best vegetables.
Q. What is the key to getting meat-eaters to enjoy vegetarian food?
A. Use fresh, high-quality ingredients. Prepare dishes with tastes and flavors similar to what meat-eaters are accustomed to-rather than introducing new foods, try cutting out the meat and adding a familiar substitute if necessary. Folks who are used to eating meat are usually accustomed to eating loads of fat and salt as well-don't be too afraid to enjoy those flavors in vegetarian cooking. For me, I started enjoying only vegetarian food when I saw a PETA brochure in 1989.
Q. What, in your opinion, is in store for the future of plant-based cuisine?
A. In my future, there is more and more homegrown food-and we plan on growing enough to share, as well.
Q. What are your favorite ingredients to work with?
A. My favorite ingredients to work with include vinegars (like local wine vinegars with fruit or herbs), herbs and spices-fresh, dried, toasted, and/or ground-citrus, and chiles.
Q. In your opinion, what vegetarian dish or type of food is most frequently poorly prepared and why?
A. I think the key element in creating a wonderful experience for eaters is overcoming bland flavors, often resulting from overcooking, as in greens like collards. Including some excitement from simply salt, vinegars, herbs and spices, nuts or seeds, citrus rind-with intuition, heartfelt intention, and skill-can lead to delicious food.
Q. Fun question of the day: If you were stranded on a deserted island and could only eat one kind of ethnic food, what would it be?
A. Thai! I loved cooking there with lime, basil, chile, coconut, cashewnut, coriander, rice, tamarind, mangostein, banana, peanut, pineapple, sweet soy milk . that'd suit me fine for the rest of my vacation on that island!
Q. Do vegetarian restaurants have any special obstacles that they face versus meat-based restaurants?
A. Absolutely-there is a lot of money and therefore politics tied into food policy and promotion for Americans. We start with the basic "food pyramid" and ideas like "Milk, it does a body good" and "attain our ideal body-type with an all-protein diet"-these are ridiculous obstacles vegetarian restaurants encounter. However, I am so thrilled with many, many vegetarian restaurants I visit around the world, including Hiltl in Switzerland, ChaYa in Berkeley, Hangawe in Manhattan, and Caf Gratitude in San Francisco.
Q. Can you give us one great cooking tip for aspiring vegetarian chefs?
A. Go to your local farmers market and, with good intention, you cannot go wrong. It is so vital to be connected to where the food is coming from when it enters your kitchen-know your season's brief highlights, like the kumquat in early spring, the blueberries in early summer, and the artichokes twice a year. Also, see other products people are growing on local farms-cut flowers, herb and vegetable starts, preserves, wines. San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is the hottest spot for anyone who has an interest in fresh, sustainable agriculture. I run Daily Harvest in a Certifiably Green Way (by Alameda County, California)-and I encourage vegetarian chefs, especially, to do the same, whether it be working directly with the growers, using cornstarch-based biodegradable cutlery, or arriving at your kitchen via bicycle. We already have taken the most elementary step toward sustainability for ourselves and the planet-let's continue taking more positive steps in each choice we make.
Q. Are there any newer vegetarian products on the market that you are particularly fond of?
A. I don't use a lot of products, but I have had some delicious grilled skewers of red onion, pineapple, tomato, and Gardenburger's Meatless Riblets-it really is a fun eat, but quite a manufacturing process from a whole food.
Q. What is your favorite way to prepare seitan?
A. I find seitan to be an amazing specialty item-I use it in bourguignonne (oven-roasted in a rich marinade), taquitos (fried in a fresh corn tortilla), and soups (sauted in the pot before building the soup). Freshly made, it can be prepared with a variety of flavors to complement a dish where a high-protein, chewy element will make the meal unforgettable.
|
|
Chef: Scot Jones
Printer-Friendly
l
E-Mail This Page
l
Subscribe to E-News
