Transcript: My favorite gadget from the beginning of when I was cooking is a spoon – like the right size spoon.  You know all the cooks think I’m crazy in both the kitchens at Blue Hill because I only have one size spoon that we use the entire time.  Like you know there’s . . . In cooking kitchens you generally see like different stations have different sized spoons.  Like big shuffles . . . shovel spoons depending on what your job is.  I use one spoon, and I think it’s the right sized spoon for plating and the right sized spoon for tasting.  It’s not too big; it’s not too small.  And I want everyone to have the same consistency, because the spoon – whether you’re flipping a piece of fish, or a piece of meat; or you’re mixing vegetables; or you’re stirring rice or whatever it is, the spoon becomes an extension of your hand.  You know the closest thing you can get to your hand where you’re in control of the food – really in control of the food.  Like these tongs or these forks, like uck!  They’re nowhere near the kitchen because they tend to have this relationship with food that’s very dispassionate and literally detached.  Where as the spoon if you hold it close, you’re . . . you’re in control of . . . you’re mastering what you’re preparing.  And I think that spreads itself out across the kitchens in ways that end up adding taste to your food.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: Five ingredients that I always have on hand.  You know there’s the salt and pepper deal, and then you know . . . These days I have a lot of . . . Blue Hill Farm is really gung ho into this milk deal.  So like we have now nine cows that we’re milking.  So I generally always have milk on hand.  This is a new thing, but unpasteurized, beautiful milk, and we’re experimenting with all this stuff with it.  So I would say three, four, and five is about . . . is something of milk; like either raw milk or butter, which we’re making from the milk; or ricotta cheese; or mozzarella cheese; something that’s coming out of the dairy an that’s coming from the land, you know?  And that . . . That is exciting – that we’re using where I began.  And we’re expanding on it, and now in the kitchen I’m making things out of it.  There is nothing more pleasurable to me than having that kind of connection, and I hope to share that with more and more people.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript:  You know it’s hard to name.  There’s a couple in California, but you know because . . . And I think that makes perfect sense because they’re closer to the land.  You know this guy David Kinch in South of San Francisco’s restaurant __________; that when I talk to him and e-mail with him, he’s thinking about food in a way that I’d like to think more about food; which is starting with what’s . . . what he’s getting.  Literally like everybody says that.  “I go to the market; I pick out what I want, and I have a great dish.”  Okay boom.  It’s been done.  But he’s really thinking about these relationships and growing a little bit of his own.  But increasingly about relationships with farmers that’s informing his food.  And what I like about a guy like David Kinch, again, is that, you know, he said this great line I think once that I read that he’s surrounded by the Berkeley aesthetic which is you get from the farm, you do nothing with the food. You grill it, and it’s like olive oil, and it’s . . . it’s the farmer on the __________.  It’s like okay.  He’s saying, you know, if I get great ingredients, you the diner     . . . you’re expecting me to do something with it, you know?  And that’s what he’s doing intelligently.  He’s got a great background of experiences about putting in your time.  He, too, went to France and put in his time.  And I think, you know, his sensibility is like . . . is very evolved.  And the food, you know, is on its way to being some of the best in the country.  But it’s being informed from farmers that are supplying him and he’s working directly with.  I think that’s an exciting future, and I think he can have a lot of influence on the future of food.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: Oh yeah.  Well there’s a lot there.  That’s a tough one.  Under the radar is . . . I think there is a wide open bulls eye really, again, for more of this; for more people like investigating . . . Like not having a Rockefeller farm, but having farmers that they’re working with, and working with them to . . . So if there’s an underrated restaurant, they are not quite open yet and they’re coming.  Because I think there’s a real interest in this stuff, and I talk to the next generation of chefs.  And I think there’s gonna be people who are gonna take advantage of relationships with farmers and do things that . . . that I’m not even doing.  You know really push the envelope with that.  I’m excited for a future where the re are restaurants opening with stronger connections to chefs; not in the Alice Waters, Berkeley kind of way; you know not in like the . . . you know didactic like teaching people.  That’s done.  That’s there.  I think the next phase is about this kind of . . . There are so many brilliant cooks who are about to become chefs or wanna become chefs who can invest that passion, that burning desire to produce good food, but do it in collaboration with the farmer.  Because it seems to me that the future of cooking is more in the hands of the farmer.  You know there’s been tectonic shifts.  In the beginning . . . Like 100 years ago, you know, it was tradition.  It was, yeah, great, heavy tradition that dictated what we ate.  You know all the classic dishes, that’s what was served in restaurants.  And then this tectonic shift happens, and all of a sudden you know the chef came out of the kitchen and became, you know, the man or the woman . . . usually the man who says, “I have my signature style on this classic, and I am doing this.”  And Alice Waters says, “I’m working with this farmer,” and this is . . . The chef became the person who __________ . . . according to the rise of the celebrity chef.  There’s another tectonic shift going on.  I think we’re right at the beginning of it, or maybe even in the middle of it, certainly not the end of it.  But this next one is in the hands of the farmer, and that’s because everybody is awakening to knowing more about where their food is coming from.  And there’s a limited supply.  The supply chain is not huge because we’ve so bastardized in the last 50 years the supply chain.  So what we’re looking at is like the control, the power being in the seeds and in the soil, and in the ability of the farmer to grow it.  And that’s not endless supply.  And in fact every year it seems to get less and less.  So I would look for the next tectonic shift, which is again happening now, which hopefully restaurants will begin to represent, which is the power of the farm; or the farmer dictating the menu much more than the chef.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript:  Yeah overrated restaurants.  I don’t know.  I don’t know if I wanna pin someone on overrated restaurants.  I mean I think all restaurants are overrated.  That’s the problem.  You know it’s like every restaurant that’s gotten great, you know, recommendation tends to come at it with a lot of exaggeration.  And I don’t know if that . . . Is that my fault?  Is it the public’s?  Is that the eating public’s fault, or is it the media’s fault?  I’m not really sure, but there’s something going on there that the expectation level is just too high and it’s always gonna disappoint.  Which is why, you know, you hear . . . Nine times out of 10 you just hear, “I just like going to the informal place, you know, down the street.  You know the place with the Mexican burrito and stuff.”  Well of course you do because your expectation level is nothing, and it’s tasty food, and it meets the expectation, and it’s cheap.  And it’s fun and informal and like, you know, it informs you and sustains you in a way that, you know, a big fancy restaurant can’t.  So I don’t know.  I find myself being disappointed by going out often, but I don’t know if it’s me just expecting a lot and then falling short.  Or if it’s, you know, being played up before I get there?

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript:  Well you know I tend to think like this . . . this molecular gastronomy movement is a little overrated.  And that’s more around the world than it is in America, although it’s come here in full blast.  And most molecular gastronomy being the . . . the fascination with science and manipulation.  So for me, I’m really interested in the science of food, especially the science of agriculture.  I think it’s a fascinating field, and I don’t think that one can believe in sustainability and . . . and organic agriculture and . . . and be . . . to believe in that stuff you have to be against modern science and technology.  That doesn’t make any sense to me.  I think you can believe in the most sustainable cuisine and also want to introduce and learn about the most up to date, innovative cooking techniques and agriculture that occurs in the field, you know?  I just . . . The chefs that are totally driven by science and manipulation chemicals to get flavors and textures in food strikes me as like sort of boring.  And also as like     . . . as like very manipulative.  And I really love it.  There are some people who are doing it great, so I don’t mean to make a blanket statement about it.  It’s wrong to do that because there are people who do it with real responsibility, and real intellect, and real art.  So . . . And I think that pushes food along and it’s nice.  The problem is nobody is . . . Very few chefs are taking that . . . the time.  It’s a huge time investment to learn about all that stuff, and the energy, and you know the capital and stuff, and investing that in the farmers that they’re buying from.  You know you could really take that time and show . . . introduce farmers to new seeds or to new techniques in . . . You know and that’s all available on the Internet just like all the molecular gastronomy is.  So me, I prefer those chefs who are thinking more about the ingredients and the technology that’s going in the field than rather in the kitchen.  But yeah, that sounds a little harsh, but I don’t mean it to be.  Okay.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: I don’t.  You know I’m usually like out with the New Yorkers sort of going to sit at the bar and just try something somewhere.  But I . . . I tend not to eat big meals outside the restaurant unless I’m traveling.  So you know often I’ll go and sit and the bar at Lupa.  It’s Mario’s restaurant.  But just to have a bowl of pasta is like. . . I think it’s one of the great pleasures of living in New York, yeah.  So   . . . And New York is nice ________.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: Well I’ve had so many great meals.  But a part of it is just like the context, you know?  And that’s another thing that chefs really understand is like . . . You know there’s great cooks and there’s great chefs.  And chefs, I think, understand that context is just as important as the food.  So I told you about food stories, and I think that plays into that.  Not that I’m a great chef, but I think that it’s an important aspect of being something more than just, you know, kind of ego driven chef.  But the other part of it is like controlling the context.  So . . . And that’s very hard to do, especially in Midtown Manhattan or anywhere in Manhattan.  It’s very hard to like get people to think about other things than their job or their hectic life.  And again, I point to Mario Batali.  I think he does it well.  You walk into his restaurants and you get a feeling for something that’s much larger than just the food that’s on the plate.  My own personal experience is, you know, I was stodging . . . I was doing this internship in France for several years even.  And at the end of it I treated myself.  I took a _________ down to the south, and I had a meal when Allan _________ was really just starting.  I mean he’d just gotten three stars at __________, and he was the up and coming guy.  I mean now he’s the most famous chef in the world, but back then he was really in the kitchen.  And I had a meal that I’ll never forget because, you know, it was my last time in France and it was just like . . . It was really something to behold because everything sort of came together at that meal.  It was an extraordinary meal, and I remember crying over the pea soup.  I got so tired, too.  I was so rundown, and I just remember eating the pea soup and just crying because it was just such an expression of Southern France.  It was like it had all these Italian influences in it, and it was very light, and you could see the future of cuisine.  And I was just tasting it.  And I had been in Paris where it was quite traditional.  I was in a very traditional, old school restaurant.  There was lots of butter and cream, and delicious, and great, but you saw this thing that was not just a master at work.  It was a master at work within the right environment that conveyed that.  And those kind of meals are just like . . . they are so priceless.  You know so . . . I mean it was a three-star restaurant, so it’s like a little predictable that you’d have this great meal there.  But I actually did . . . It actually really delivered on what . . . It’s so hard, you know?  Like it’s so hard to walk into a restaurant and have the expectation level.  The press, they tend to play up so much, and they . . . You know these chefs in these restaurants you go in, I feel like 99.9 percent of the time you’re like a little bit disappointed.  So it’s those chefs that can really reach those heights.  And they can’t just do it through the food.  Chefs know that.  Or you go the other way, like the David Changs of the world who, you know, under promise and over deliver.  You know and that’s the great . . . That’s the great quality of chefs is when you can have an environment in your restaurant that you walk in, and you’re a little bit like, you know . . . The ceilings are low.  Or your . . . you . . . There’s paper on the tables like at Blue Hill New York.  Or you know the glassware isn’t so great.  And then all of a sudden the food comes out and it’s blow away incredible, you know?  And it’s that way because it’s met your expectation and actually exceeded it.  When does that ever happen in this world today?  It’s like whether it’s a movie or whatever it is, it’s like it’s always a little bit disappointing from what you’ve expected.  And so when you have an experience that can meet that expectation or even supercede it, it’s like man.  It’s just incredible.  So controlling the context is a big part of it, and that’s a fight in New York.  And one of the great advantages that Stone Barns has is we’re out in this idyllic landscape.  We have the opportunity to control people’s context and people’s understanding of what they’re eating.  And that’s . . . That makes me, again, look like such a better chef.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: So it seems to me what makes a great chef – the ones that I respect the most – are when all of the vectors when you sit down to a meal aren’t pointing at the chef.  They’re pointing something else.  Now that might be in the realm of sustainability; but it also might be in the realm of history or some type of culture.  You know Mario Batali is very good at that, and he’s one of the greats at that.  All of the chefs who, you know . . . who don’t scream, “Me, me, me!” on the plate, I think that says to me there’s something going on that’s larger than just food, which makes the food taste better.  It’s not just focused on the ego and on . . . and on the . . . the manipulation of the ingredients, but of something larger.  It’s about something.  I think those are the chefs that end up making a real mark.  And then, you know, there’ s a second part to this too, which is like the editing of a dish, you know which is . . . which is to me like the most critical.  Like those chefs that like . . . those chefs who put way too much ingredients, and we’ve all had that.  And then there are other chefs on the other end who are minimalists for the sake of being minimal, and it’s very sort of a feat and kind of off-putting.  Precious, right?  But to strike that balance, it’s like any art.  And that sends . . . I hate relating cooking to art because I think that’s pretentious, too.  But this is the one place where I would give up to and make the analogy to art, whether it’s writing or painting.  You know there are very few like real artists and people at the top of their profession who can . . . who can take out from what they are creating to get to the essence. And they don’t . . . They don’t have, you know, a steel . . . You know in the great chef’s restaurant, there is no great dish – the one dish you have to have.  There is . . . You know it’s much . . . The experience is much bigger than that.  It reminds me of this Nabokov thing that someone once told me – that Nabokov, when he was writing “Three Sisters”, there was this great scene where one guy says to the other guy, “Tell me about your wife.”  And the guy stands up and he does this big speech.  “My wife, my wife, let me tell you about my wife.  My wife in the morning is dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.  My wife by noontime is dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.  And by the afternoon my wife starts talking about dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.”  He goes on and on, and everyone in the rehearsal for this thing is _________ their firstborn.  They love this speech so much at the end of the week right before they’re about to do the performance, someone says to Nabokov, you know that scene might make . . . might go down in history as one of the greatest scenes in the history of playwriting.  That night Nabokov sends a telegram to the director and says, “I want you to rewrite the scene where the guys asks how is his wife.  When he asks how is his wife, he should answer, ‘A wife?  A wife is a wife.’  Period.”  So he takes out this incredible scene, and to me it was like . . . I remember hearing that story, and it was like that . . . that is true art, because what Nabokov . . . You know what he was saying . . . And Nabokov . . . I got it wrong.  It was Chekhov .  “Three Sisters.”  So anyway Chekhov when he was saying that, he was really, you know . . . He was . . . He was saying that the play is bigger than that scene.  And if people walk away from that play just thinking about that scene, or that scene steals the show it isn’t great art.  And that’s the same when you sit down to dinner.  If there’s one or two things in your meal that stand out, you’ve lost the greatness of the experience.  So that sounds a little highfaluting, but I feel like it’s generally true.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: I mean I would think . . . You know the age of the . . . What is  . . . The Food Network kind of goes in defiance of this like traditional apprenticeship program that I went through, and that it seems to me more chefs . . . more cooks today could really benefit from.  Yes.  So the answer is _______ qualified I think an apprenticeship program . . . The kind that I went through was, you know, in France and kind of hard core . . . is an important maturation process. Hard-core because back then there weren’t the rules there are today in the French kitchens.  And they were mean places to work and they didn’t like Americans.  I mean they don’t like Americans now, but they didn’t like Americans then.  You know and the French kitchen of the history, the social dynamic that’s involved in . . . in the gastronomical services wherever you are, but especially in the kitchen, is intense.  And it takes a lot of discipline and a lot of technique and whatnot, and that’s a great place to learn.  Spain today is a big one for cooks to go to and get the same sort of inculcation of history of discipline.  So yeah I think it’s really important.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: No I’ve had huge advantages.  I’m not shy about admitting it.  I am like the most . . . I am the luckiest guy alive, you know, to have the support of the Rockefellers and everyone who is around the Rockefellers believing in my brother and myself and what we talked about, and giving us support left and right, etc.  So yes – very lucky and very fortunate.  So here is my defense.  My defense is like you don’t have to be a Rockefeller to believe in the kind of peasant ideals really that we’re talking about; which is, you know, sustainability, and pleasure, and good food.  And you know people look at Stone Barns and they say, you know, there’s this ideal.  There’s this high-end restaurant.  There’s this idyllic farm.  There’s an education center that’s saying oh, we can all be this way, and that’s not true.  But in fact the principles that underpin those three . . . If it’s a three-legged _________ – the farm, the restaurant, and the education center – the principles that underlie them are really very straightforward.  It’s about . . . It’s about, you know, a chef and a farmer – in this case a couple of farmers – that are deeply connected in creating a menu, and an education center that’s talking about it.  So you know if we were in, I don’t know, Wichita, Kansas, you could have a chef who has a daughter who is in the public school system, and you want the daughter to eat better at lunch, you know?  So you contact with the rancher, and you say look.  Instead of shipping off all your cattle to your confinement operation, you know when there are certain aids, like let’s finish them just on grass.  And I’ll buy for my restaurant all the steaks, and (01:04:00) we’ll make an arrangement with the school.  Let’s go together with the school, and we’ll make an arrangement with the school to buy all the chopped meat, all the hamburger meat, and therefore introduce it into grass fed hamburger meat for my daughter’s lunch program, right?  And so they do that and they do a couple of ________.  The principal of the school loves the idea.  And instead of just making a contract for the hamburger meat, which he does, he also involves it in this partnership and this animal – this grass fed animal into the biology course, and into the social studies course, and even into the history course, and even into the mathematics course.  Because figuring out how to break up a steer, and make money, and do all that stuff; you know and the history of ruminance – eating actually grass and how different that is – all of a sudden you have in that scenario the same thing as Stone Barns.  You have a chef, you have a farmer, and you have a school entity . . . a public facility, you know, that is teaching the next generation about food and where food comes form.  You know it’s not Rockefeller style.  It’s not in Westchester County, but Blue Hill and the Stone Barns Center for Food Agriculture would . . . would look quite different if it was in South Dakota, as it would in Wichita, Kansas, as it would in Texas, as it would in Berkeley.  And we are what we are for 630 Bedford Road in Tarrytown.  And it can be interpreted – the ideals of it, this connection – knowing more about where your food comes from and having a facility – something that tells that story is a great and very strong collaboration.  I think it could be replicated anywhere in the world, and I believe strongly in that.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Question:  Would you ever consider taking meat off the menu?                            

Transcript: No.  It would be the last thing I’d do.  I mean there are a lot of things you just said there.  They create a lot of methane in part because . . . and a lot of greenhouse trapping gases in part because of how concentrated we have them now.  Almost all the cattle raised in this country and increasingly around the world, because everyone is copying our method, is in these confinement operations that . . . that, you know, introduce a whole host of problems – one of them being these trapping gases, and another being the manure and what to do with it.  Because manure, of course we all know, is one of the great composting and nutrient benefiting things for soil.  But when you have animals in confinement you end up making manure, and manure becomes a big problem that you need to deal with; that you need to get rid of.  It isn’t an attribute; it’s a waste.  And so there are all these environmental problems around raising meat in the way that we have shown that we can raise meat, which in the last 50 years is basically industrialization and basically confinement.  And that’s been the wrong direction.  We’ve seen that.  It’s definitely given us this cheap food system, but it’s totally unsustainable.  And I would say economically, as I argued before, it’s unsustainable for the future.  So would I ever take meat off the menu?  No, because look.  New England is the absolute best place in the world – in the country at least – to raise sustainable meat because of the great grassland, and because of the ecological conditions that are natural to this environment.  So you know would I take off animals that, you know . . . herbivores like a beef cattle that’s fed in a grain intensive diet?  Yes.  We don’t . . . We actually don’t have beef on the menu right now . . . right at this particular moment because I don’t have a supplier right now that’s feeding all grass that I’m really excited about.  So we took it off the menu, yes.  But the idea that we’d take off lamb . . . local lamb or local pork, I mean that makes no sense because in fact the Northeast . . . For all this desire to support small family, local farms, New England is the harshest conditions in the world to grow vegetables.  We talked about the pleasure.  The reality is, you know, it’s very difficult.  We’re not California.  We’re not Florida.  We’re not Texas.  We’re not Arizona.  And so very difficult to make money . . . real money and preserve real land by growing vegetables.  The God-given landscape is for animal agriculture.  And you know you, and I, and everyone out there could be doing more for open space, and for small family farms, and for local food systems by eat a lot of meat, especially during the winter.

Question: What about the deforestation argument?

Transcript: Well yeah, I mean right.  You’re getting into, you know, the world’s demand for meat.  And do I think that the American consumption of meat is something that could be replicated in China and in Southeast Asia and all these developing economies?  Clearly not.  Clearly not.  We have to . . . We don’t have enough     . . . We’re not two things.  A, we don’t have the right system for raising meat that’s sustainable in this country that doesn’t cause great environmental damage and great inhumanity to the animals.  So that’s one.  And the other is even if everyone was taken out of this confinement and put on this open grassland, we probably don’t have enough grassland to feed all the people in the world on an American meat consumption diet.  That’s true.  But that doesn’t mean that . . . I don’t know.  What does that lead to?  It leads to, you know, a change in diet, and a change in how we cook.  And the . . . The age of the . . . of the, you know, 14 ounce steak, you know, that’s . . . that’s gone.  It was gone a few years ago.  It’s really gone now.  It’s gonna be too expensive.  And “too expensive” I say as a broader term – too expensive, we’re seeing, for our health; too expensive for the, you know, environmental damage that it causes; and now thankfully too (01:00:32) expensive for the economy that it . . . that it requires.  So you know that’s the future and I think . . . I don’t . . . There isn’t a cuisine in the world . . .  I mean you’re asking really about the world question.  How do we feed this supposed 10 billion people in the next 25 years?  How do we feed the world?  And if you look at the Chinese traditional diet; if you look at the Indian . . . Of course the Indian traditional diet they don’t eat meat.  You look at the Indian, the Chinese, you look at Middle Eastern . . . You look at all these countries, the meat consumption as a . . . versus grain and vegetables always very small; very, very small.  Those are traditional diets.  Those are traditional diets based on what was available, and it seems to me like we’re gonna have to go back to that.   This Americanization of, you know, you can keep eating your meat and have as much as you want is probably a thing of the past.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: Yeah.  This drive for ethanol has direct effect on everything that’s going on on the farm because it’s driving up fuel prices and it’s driving up grain prices.  I mean that’s . . . that’s the irony, is like you know we’re competing . . . ethanol    . . . I mean we’re competing with the . . . It’s weird.  The vegetables are competing with, like, the SUVs that drive into our restaurant to come and eat.  It’s crazy.  I mean it’s like the hunger for fuel and our whole fuel system is based on cheap fuel.  I mean it has been.  It’s no secret.  It’s like the great big American breadbasket is based on cheap fuel and cheap labor.  And both those things sort of simultaneously . . . Actually cheap fuel, cheap labor, and like a stable weather pattern, you know?  And all three of those things are very quickly coming to an end.  You know a stable weather pattern and cheap labor, you might argue they won’t affect the cost of food immediately.  I might argue it, but I could understand that, you know, the global climate change is not gonna have direct effects right away; although some would argue ________; maybe we can deal with that for a few years without it really affecting.  But there’s no question that the rise in $100 barrel of oil that’s ________ doesn’t have an effect, and we’ve seen it just over the last year.  I mean the price of food has gone through the roof – I mean literally up 75 percent on the food index in just the last year and a half.  That’s having huge effects up and down the good chain.  And grain  . . . I mean that’s why I think, again, the future of this whole movement is so positive.  Because if . . . And this is one aspect of it, but probably best to look at it that way.  If you’re in the beef cattle business, you know, and your whole mindset is based on feeding grain to your animal quickly and efficiently . . . getting them from a calf to market weight – like 1,400 pounds in as short a time as possible – that’s an economic incentive; in as short a time as possible.  To do that you need to feed tremendous amounts of grain; tremendous, tremendous amounts of grain.  You need to keep them in the feedlot where their _________ becomes a problem that you have to deal with.  And you deal with it through energy; through oil that gets transported.  But all of it is based . . . The grain that’s fed to the animals is based on cheap oil.  It’s the whole thing.  So all of a sudden when cheap oil is not $20 a barrel or $40 a barrel – it’s $100 a barrel – down the line you are going to . . . if you’re in that business are going to have to look to other options or pass that price on to the consumer.  Now what we’re seeing in this short phase is passed on to the consumer.  We’re seeing this big increase in food prices.  I don’t think that’s gonna last.  I don’t think . . . Americans consider it their right of passage that we have cheap food.  And so it seems to me like that falls right into the hands of the sustainable farmer.  And what I said to you before is that flavor, ecology, and economy all fall into the same line.  And this is where we’re going to see it, because beef cattle – going on that example – doesn’t need grain.  It’s an herbivore.  It’s meant to eat grass.  And where do we have the best grass in the world?  Right here in New England.  You know and it seems like if you’re a farmer . . . an animal farmer and you have land in . . . around the Northeast,  you know you’re gonna have a comparative and competitive advantage very quickly in the next couple of years.  That’s exciting, because what’s here . . . Grass is free, and the sun feeds the grass, the grass feeds the animals, the animals feed us.  It’s a free system.  No more sustainable than that.  And it’s gonna be more expensive than the cheap beef that we have.  The cheap beef that we have has been totally false, and inhumane, and ecologically unbuyable, and economically unbuyable for this future system.  And we’re all gonna see it because the supply siders . . . Like these conservative __________ always _________ let the marketplace prevail.  Let the . . . That’s what they always say about the food.  Let the free market make this.  Don’t say _________ support the small family farmer.  Let the marketplace prevail.  Well this is what we’re gonna see now, is the marketplace is gonna prevail.  And these same people that have been saying all along are gonna ask for subsidies, and more subsidies, and more political regulation to make sure they stay these powerful food mongers which control our food system.  And I think . . . I really feel very positive . . . If I was a betting guy, and I’m not . . . But if I was a betting guy I’d be betting on the people that have their eye more on the sun; and more in a sustainable way because it’s gonna be the cheapest food out there.  _________ about the most flavorful.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: It seems to me that part of the problem with the American diet is that we have very little culture.  We have very little food culture.  We have very little food memory that informs our sort of everyday recipes.  So we’re all around the world, which is part of the great, great excitement of eating in America.  You know eating in New York City you can eat Indian one night and Chinese the next night.  That’s sort of like part of the American experience . . . eating experience.  The problem with it is that it doesn’t . . . I think it defies reality, and it defies tradition and history; and recent agriculture history, which is right outside our doorstep; and to the extent that like, you know, as an eater you have kind of, again, a responsibility to connect to the local agriculture tradition.  I think it’s important.  That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with eating other cuisines or preparing them at home and then nothing.  But my cuisine at Blue Hill . . . The food at Blue Hill is much more about what the landscape and ecological conditions can offer us than it is about being excited about a Turkish fig – which I am excited about, but in ways that don’t get me spending as much time as I would on that almond carrot.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: I mean you know you ask any farmer what’s in season and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy.  I mean there’s stored stuff and there is nothing.  But in fact there is a lot in season now, and what we’re harvesting out of the greenhouse and out of these winter tunnels out in the, you know, 50 cent per yard little fabric tunnels outside . . . and mind you it’s 20 . . . 18 degrees outside right now, but we’re harvesting _________, lettuce greens, and kale, and Swiss chard.  And we’re harvesting Jerusalem artichokes which have been in the ground since last summer and are literally sugar.  So tonight you come to Blue Hill and you’ll have sliced _________ with artichokes and Jerusalem artichoke puree, and these beautiful salads that are a part of our agriculture only 20 miles north of here.  And we’re also harvesting pigs, and eggs, and sheep, and I mean on and on.  The winter agriculture for animals is like . . . It’s a no-brainer around here.  You know so we tend to like have a lot more meat on the menu in the winters, and we tend to have lots of salads and root vegetables for this time of year.  But I’m also . . . You know I’m not like a purian.  I’m not squeaky clean.  I’m not . . . You know I would hate to think that like I’m trying to talk about an agriculture . . . about an experience at Blue Hill that’s like a Shaker village 100 years ago.  You know like we have to live like they lived then to be pure about locality and about sustainability.  That just doesn’t make any sense to me.  We have a big food chain that in some sense is . . . is delicious too, you know?  It’s very efficient.  And to the extent that I can know the farmer in California, or Florida, or in Texas or beyond, you know great.  But I indulge in that too.  I love tropical fruit at this time of year.  You know I love avocados.  We get some of those in.  There’s nothing that is worse than being, you know, pedantic about this thing for the sake of it.  The localvore movement is something that’s very popular now and I love it.  It’s great.  People are trying to do all these meals for less than 100 miles are 150 miles from these food sheds.  It’s great.  But for a restaurant that you’re trying to appeal to the most sophisticated and demanding clientele in Westchester County or in New York City than anywhere in the world, you know I don’t think there’s a problem with __________.  It’s a question of percentages.  So in August if I’m serving you tropical fruit, we’ve got issues.  But for right now I don’t mind indulging in fruits and vegetables a little bit from around the world.  So there you go.  That flies in the face of the whole sustainability/local thing, but I don’t care.  It’s confusing the situation, but I think confusing instructively.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: A couple of Christmases ago I got this gift from one of our distributors who sold me . . . still sells us these incredible nut oils from France – from Burgundy.  And the maker . . . They’re incredibly expensive.  This guy is so hard . . . Like he does it in his garage behind his house.  This guy is like another wackadoo.  So he . . . The Frenchman . . . The __________ producer Jean Marc ___________, he gave the distributor, _________, a present for us because we were his biggest customer; and his first, I think . . . one of his first.  And he gave us a gift for Christmas.  So ____________ handed it to me and I opened the box, and it’s this box of dust.  It’s __________.  It’s just dust.  Again, I’m like what the hell is this?  So _____________ says Jean Marc wanted to give you after he  . . . a present that . . . of nut dust.  It’s basically after he presses the nuts for his oil he has all this residue.  So he said . . . ____________ said, you know, last year I went over to Burgundy and I had lunch with Jean Marc.  And as I open the door to go into his kitchen, he was there on the stove sautéing potatoes.  And we sat down to a salad and a little, like, fried potatoes . . . sautéed potatoes.  But _________ said all he could taste from the salad and potatoes . . . All he could taste were almonds.  He didn’t see any almonds.  He just smelled this like overwhelming thing of almonds.  So he thought there was some kind of almond soufflé coming for dessert or something, but there was no almond soufflé.  So he asks . . . He asks Jean Marc . . . He says Jean Marc, you know, it’s a delicious meal, but I’m tasting these almonds.  And Jean Marc said oh okay.  So after I press the almonds, I have this residue, this dust.  Instead of throwing it out I throw it onto my potato fields, and a lot of it on my potato fields.  And through this incredible process of osmosis, you know, he gets almond potatoes, right?  So I thought . . . And he’s telling me this, and I’m looking at my box, and I’m like this is the secret to, you know, my millions, right?  So I take the stuff and I call the nut company out in California . . . an organic nut company and asked them for like 500 pounds of, I thought, pine nut.  Because I thought I could one up him.  I sort of got competitive with this guy I don’t even know who gave me a gift.  Pine nut . . . We did almond again.  We did walnut.  We got all these nuts and Jack spread them on carrots.  And I didn’t wanna do it potatoes because I thought it would be too much __________, so I did carrots.  And we’d have a lot of carrots through the winter.  So we spread, spread, spread, spread, spread.  Meanwhile I decide, you know, with my brother we’re gonna make some money, so we do like this special night.  We know when the harvest is coming – seven weeks after the planting.  So we say okay, we’re gonna do a harvest night.  And we’re gonna do, you know, an almond carrot night because we figured that would be the one that would work the best.  So an almond carrot night.  We invite . . . The whole dining room is packed with people who are excited.  We send out this e-mail.  We talked to people for months and months.  We get the waiters all jazzed up on this thing.  I mean everybody was just . . . The coat check, the valets, everybody was . . . The cooks, everybody was talking about it.  So the day of the dinner comes, right?  And the harvest for some reason came really late that afternoon, and I hadn’t actually really tasted the carrot, you know?  So it’s like 4:30 and we’re sitting there cleaning carrots, and we’re like   . . . I started to taste them, and right as I’m tasting them – again, too much to believe – like the tickets start coming in.  You know it’s like five almond carrots salads; six almond carrot salads; you know double order of almond carrot salad.  And I take a bite of the carrots . . . no almond flavor, nothing, zero, zilch.  It doesn’t even taste like there is a potential for almond in the future.  There’s like nothing.  It’s a delicious carrot; no almond.  Total failure.  So I sliced the carrots, and all of a sudden tickets are like coming in, coming in.  We’ve got 30 tickets on the board and like 500 almond salads.  And so I start slicing the carrots really quickly; salt, pepper, lemon vinaigrette; and I reach for Jena Marc’s almond oil which I have a few extra bottles and I start dousing it with almond oil.  And I mix it, and then I give it to the waiters to taste just before they go out to the dining room.  Genius. Man, it tastes like almonds.  Man it’s unbelievable.  Dan Barber’s a genius.  So that night we sold like 120 almond carrot salads.  And it is the greatest success in the history of the . . . It’s the best night we’ve ever had at Blue Hill.  It’s the best night we’ve ever had at any restaurant.  People wrote e-mails.  They still talk about it.  They still talk about it.  People say it’s the most exciting, the most delicious, you know, experience I’ve ever had in a restaurant.  There was a buzz in the dining room like I’ve never had.  And what I realized at the end of the night in the mayhem of plating all these salads – I mean it was a crazy night – I forgot to put the almond oil in the carrots.  I did on some, but I didn’t on a lot, and it did not matter.  It absolutely did not matter.  People tasted almonds because you told them the story.  And they tasted the most delicious carrot of their life because they had this funny story that they felt invested in, and they felt a part of, and they wanted to be connected to.  I think we’re hard wired for this, and that’s my ultimate theory.  It’s like you know as hunter-gatherers, we were spending our time figuring out is that thing poisonous?  Is that thing delicious?  Will that thing feed our children, you know?  Is that thing nutritious?  That kind of thing, and I don’t think that’s been bred out of us, you know?  So when someone gives you a story of this kind of thing, like it informs us and relaxes us really to taste things that we otherwise wouldn’t taste.  You know that’s my . . . We have so many stories like that that just like teaches me again and again you have a story, you have delicious food.  As long as you really don’t screw it up you have really delicious food.  So there you go.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: Our variety choice at, you know . . . of the things that we’re growing are basically dependent on what will grow well in our ecosystem again.  So you know we’re basically getting seeds that either are from the same latitude around the world; or from seeds that we know have grown here in the past.  I mean right now we’re growing a type of corn called __________ corn.  Now ___________ corn we did an experiment . . . Actually some guy . . . some crazy guy from North Carolina who’s obsessed with saving seeds paid us  . . . paid our farmer Jack $2,000 to plant 75 of these . . . these corn . . . corn plants of __________ corn.  He said now it was . . . It was the most popular corn among the Native American Indians, and they used to prize it for its ability to dry and feed . . . feed the tribes during the . . . during the winter.  And so Jack     . . . And I was very skeptical if this would germinate at all.  And in fact we got 99 percent germination and we got incredible corn.  Now we harvested . . . And just like this is out of, you know . . . Like if you were to write this into a novel you would think, like, this was just not to be believed.  But we harvested . . . The next day . . . The next day I’m reading this brochure from a very famous marketplace in actually Michigan that sells wholesale and retail around the country.  And I open up to like the middle of the pamphlet and they say the most famous Italian _________, we now have it on sale __________ from Italy.  And “__________” translates as _________ corn.  So it’s the Italians that recognized from the Indians this incredible corn that could make this unbelievable _______; took it from us; preserved it while we in the United States have completely lost it except really for the seeds that we had growing that ended up germinating.  And there’s a little . . . He paid some other farmers to grow it and they didn’t really germinate well.  But we are preserving what is our natural heritage in our natural ecology.  I mean this is where I . . . Northeast was corn country for the Native Indians.  And so the Italians recognized this, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago and have preserved it over these small family farms.  So it’s one of those things.  So now we grind our own ___________.  It’s like back into the turn of the century.  We’re like a little miller and we grind our own ___________, and we make this unbelievably flavorful __________.  People cannot . . . People taste it and they like . . . They never tasted _________ in their life, you know, when they’ve had this stuff.  Now it’s really great _________, there’s no question.  If I gave you a bowl right now you’d flip out it’s so good, because you’re really tasting things that have been hybridized out of it – flavors, and oils, and the germ and all that stuff that are incredible.  But also, by the way, it’s more healthful.  That’s another thing that I researched, is that in that germ, in those oils are a lot of micronutrients that are totally bred out over the course of generations.  But I tell that story about this wacky dude who paid us $2,000, and the Native Americans, and _________, and the response in the dining room is as if you’ve just given them, you know, the secret to life, right?  Because they’re tasting now all of a sudden . . . You know I mean they’re tasting Italy, and tradition, you know and all this stuff.  And the tradition of Italy is based actually on America.  It’s like all these things that just like . . . They totally drink the Kool-Aid right away, you know?  So it’s great __________, there’s no question.  But it’s much better because I have that story that we can relate to everybody, and that makes me look like a better chef, you know?  Even my best days . . . I don’t lack an ego.  I have an ego like the rest of the chefs.  But I cannot cook as well as those stories can make people taste things they otherwise wouldn’t taste.  It’s a kind of seasoning that’s just priceless.  So I like to get more of those stories in self-interest because it makes my food taste better.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: Well you can eat with a clear conscience anything that’s . . . Well from the animal point of view you can eat anything that eats grass.  I mean beef . . . You know beef, dairy, that’s what New England was built on.  Literally the landscape was cleared so that animals could have this great access to grass.  We have all the conditions here for the most perfect . . . the most perfect diet, and like I said buffet of delicious grass.  And so it seems to me like, you know, taking advantage of that through our farmers and encouraging our farmers to take advantage of that landscape of that grass diet is really important.  And then . . . And then I would suggest, you know, root vegetables and fall hearty crops are totally abundant in this locality, you know and our diet should reflect that in the fall and the winter.  And like I said I have a great natural advantage with the cold because of the sugar levels.  And they’re also showing a real linkage, a real correspondence between bricks levels, high sugar content and healthful food.  You know minerality; nutrient density; all of that is because the vegetable needs to struggle a little bit to survive, it . . . Like our personalities when we’re in situations that are difficult for us, it creates a personality that’s much more intriguing.  Well it’s the same with a vegetable.  It creates in order to survive in its conditions that are conducive to survival.  It’s creating defenses against . . . up against freeze, against disease.  And those defenses when we ingest them tend not only to be flavorful, but very healthful.

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: Well it depends on who you are.  You know it’s like . . . It also shouldn’t be a stressful thing, you know?  It’s like, you know, it could mean you take your family instead of, you know, to the Price Chopper, you take your family to the farmer’s market once a week.  And things are more expensive there, so you do some . . . some intelligent shopping and you cook a little bit more at home.  You know when you’re at the farmer’s market, you know, you ask the farmer, you know, how is this pork raised?  And how is . . . What soil did this carrot grow in?  And what kind of carrot is it?  And maybe, you know, he has three different kinds of carrots that he’s growing.  And you come back the next season and there’s different carrots again.  And all this becomes educational and inspiring, and because of that more delicious.  I mean I think that’s . . . that’s one point that sometimes gets lost in all this, is that as chefs one of the great assets that we have is these _________ staff; these waiters to . . . and myself to tell stories about what we’re doing; where this food is coming from.  You know without the story you lead to a lot of that disassociation you were talking about before.  You know it’s the story that separates the small family farmer and even the big mid-sized family farmer from the big food chain.  Because all along the big food chain – you know from seed, to farmer, to trucker, to distributor, to marketplace – price is the determining factor.  But when you have a story from a small family farmer about a carrot, and about the soil it’s growing in, and what that farmer’s grandfather grew in that same soil – if you have a quick narrative like that, you have something that’s so unique and so infectious to people who want this kind of food.  And it informs their appetite literally. 

Recorded on: 2/11/08

Transcript: It’s a good question, and it’s a little bit about our history. You know we’ve become so disassociated with agriculture – both with the culture of agriculture and with agriculture itself. We are one generation, and in some cases two generations removed from that. And as you get more and more removed from how food is grown; who is . . . who’s growing it; where it’s coming from; how it’s getting to you, the easier it is to be completely disassociated from the decisions about all those things. So I think part of my job and part of the job of Stone Barns is to say hey wait a minute. This is part of the pleasures of living, and these are decisions that are being made every day by farmers all around the country and all around the world. And we need to buy into this thing. So as an eater you have a kind of responsibility. And for some people like chefs I think it’s a greater responsibility. And for other people like eaters it’s just . . . it’s an everyday thought process to put your money where your mouth is, and to understand that you’re voting . . . Look we’re in a political season. We vote every . . . once every four years, and so many people get frustrated that their vote really has no say and dah, dah, dah. Well this is an opportunity three times a day to vote with your fork and to make a huge impact on how people think about supporting food, and how food is grown. And that . . . That seems to me to be a very positive message, and it’s a . . . It’s one that could lead, again, with . . . with the flavor; with the potential for real pleasure. And I think people are turned onto that and excited by that, and we’re just . . . We’re just starting to feel this wave of interest which hopefully will translate into things like new political realities that I talked about.

Recorded on: 2/11/08