THE FARMER AND CHEF SERIES: EIGHT LESSONS FROM ROCKY GLADE FARM.

If a farmer is truly trying to work restaurants into their sales, I found Rocky Glade's advice to be thoroughly insightful. So insightful, in fact, I couldn't fit everything I wanted into the last post. So I thought it necessitated one more short piece––a collection of eight interesting tips, ideas and stories farmers should consider when hoping to work more with chefs.

One - Don't call chefs. And definitely don't call chefs at night––while they're cooking––unless you absolutely have to. "I will not call you [in the evening]," says Julie, "unless it's something I have to have an answer on. But if I'm trying to beat cold, or beat rain, I am gonna call you because I can't wait." Email is generally preferred, but each chef may have his or her own preference. And as the chef gets to know you, and how farms function, they will understand the necessity behind the occasional phone call.

Two - Invite the chef to visit your farm. Help he or she to understand where you're coming from: "Our hoop house is just like [restaurant] tables," says Jim, "Our profit is how much you sell that table, but also how fast you turn it. You can't put a six month crop in a hoop house because you can't give up those three lettuce crops, or the four radish crops."

Julie adds, "And they get that because they don't want someone sitting at a table for three hours not ordering anything."

Three - Send samples, take pictures, physically show them what you've got. "If they can see it and touch it," that helps sell it.

Four - Pay attention to what they want, and don't send them things they can't use. "Early on, what we didn't send built the relationship as much as what we did."

Five - Indeed, build your relationship. A lot of farmers may view restaurants as an opportunity to dump ten bushels of kale every week. But it's not that easy: "We work that relationship just as hard as the CSA," says Julie. You have to communicate with them regularly, listen to them, anticipate and care about their business as much as your own.

Six - Eat there: Rocky Glade tells us they have only eaten at Rolf a few times, and "...actually seeing your food come out on a plate," Says Julie, "You go 'Okay, that's why. That's why you want this small. Or that's why you don't want it bunched...'. If I go and eat, and watch my food come out, it helps me do a better job in the field." -Julie

Seven - Have your chef be specific about what they need. Jim tells us, "A lot of chefs will tell you, 'I'll take all you can grow'. Rolf and Daughters is really good about telling you what the goal is and why."

Eight - Share the risk. This is something Rocky Glade is still working on and Julie tells us, "The only way I've found to share the risk is by doing a bunch of research, finding out how much something might cost, I tell him what I would have to charge and he decides if it's worth it." In the case of a very expensive seed, they say, "if [the chef] helped with the seed cost, [he] could buy it later at a discounted price." This sort of "risk sharing", since chef's are not as fond of the CSA model, might be the best way to safely experiment with new crops and new ideas without risking too much of your own space, money and time.

Big thanks again to Rocky Glade for all their insight–-what a great family and model farm. Don't forget to keep up with the Vaughns through their website, and visit them at the Franklin Farmer's Market.

- Jesse.

THE FARMER AND CHEF SERIES: WHAT FARMERS DO RIGHT.

It's around 8:30 a.m. and I'm looking at a large chunk of galangal, which has suddenly appeared from the cab of Rocky Glade Farm's truck for the chefs to taste. Owen––who is always bouncing a little with excitement, but particularly so at the sight of this rhizome––cuts a few slivers off and hands one to me. The galangal itself is beautiful, the flavor unreal, and the fact that it even exists in this moment? A perfect place to continue our TFAC Series. Because if you want to know what farmers do right, Philip and Owen tell me, just talk to Rocky Glade.So that's what we did. This past Sunday, Hannah and I went to Rocky Glade Farm to meet Jim, Julie and their distractingly wonderful children at their farm for a little conversation and farm tour.I should start by saying that what I didn't realize about Rocky Glade when I first requested an interview was that this is their busy time. Unlike us, who are now more or less "laid by" for the season, the Vaughn family is just gearing up. They do not do a full-on summer market––they literally and somewhat shockingly, don't even grow tomatoes. Instead, they focus most of their efforts on the fall and winter, because upon asking themselves, "When would our customers miss us the most?", wintertime was the obvious victor. So for them to have given us a whole Sunday afternoon in the fall was very generous, and I hope they found it as fun and interesting as we did.Something else I did not realize about Rocky Glade was what percentage of their sales that restaurants make up. Well, not restaurants, exactly, but primarily one restaurant––singular. In terms of income, they told us, Rolf and Daughters makes up around a third of their yearly sales. Then, of course, there are a few other restaurants that buy from them who they view perhaps as larger market customers. They also have their market table and then a Fall/Winter CSA to make up the rest. But Rolf is a notably significant slice of the pie. For a market farmer, that's an attractive reality––having a customer that large, and that consistent. However, when I asked them if they were looking for more restaurant sales like that, they both said not really. "We don't need another Rolf." They like having a couple other smaller restaurants, then a few different income outlets. Indeed, Rolf and Daughters supplies a large portion of their revenue, but because diversity is as important in your sales as in your garden, they do not rely solely on restaurants for their income. If the restaurant shuts down for a week, as they point out, the farm doesn't shut down. Since it is always producing, a farm needs alternatives and, we all laugh, "people who can use normal-sized chard and kale––some regular chefs."What their farm has with Rolf and Daughters is special, they tell us, but it isn't unique. "A lot of farms our size," Jim points out, "end up finding one restaurant they mesh with." This is a person who comes to them to sift through seed catalogs in the winter, or calls them regularly for produce, or even goes to them first when they're wondering if a specific crop can be grown locally. It's not just a customer, but a working relationship. Or as Julie put it, "A partnership."But if you were a chef, it would be hard not to not want Rocky Glade as your farm. They are passionate about what they do, and according to Philip and Owen, they're on it. They send consistent, regular emails with produce lists, and how much is available every week. Julie "scouts the garden hard twice a week", then sends them updates on what's coming in, and what's going out. She tells us she likes any type of communication that can "hang out there" for a while, so that the chefs can see it, and start thinking about it. Chefs have different schedules from farmers. When Rocky Glade is getting back from the fields, and typing up their availability lists, R.A.D is starting service. But by sending an email or leaving a message, the next time she checks in with them––which she does by lunch every Monday, if they do not respond––she will have an order within hours.Of course, Julie said she always feels like she's pushing too hard, but to hear R.A.D. talk about it, they're grateful for the check-ins––for someone working so hard to keep them supplied with great food. The chefs also like that they know how much they can order of something, the size it might be, and so on. Jim will even send chefs pictures from the field of various produce so they can see how it's coming along. It's smart, and as far as I can tell, greatly appreciated.So what the Vaughn family does so well, from my perspective, is focus on just a few restaurants––one in particular––and really works hard to satisfy those restaurants' needs. They don't just grow things and heap them on their table in hopes restaurants will buy every bit, because most of the time, they said, the restaurants want something different––something specific. They want a smaller size, shape, or even part of the plant. Getting to know the chefs then, eating at their restaurants and really building that relationship, gives them the opportunity to understand what those needs are and to fulfill them. Moreover, they communicate a lot. They ask a lot of questions. They give and request feedback. Rocky Glade, in this sense, is a great model for the restaurant farm because they are constantly striving to better serve their restaurants.Anyway, I could write a book on Rocky Glade, but later this week or early next I'll try and distill some more of what we learned there into a more concise, "Lesson from Rocky Glade" post. So check back and––sorry, can't help myself––go Cubs!- Jesse.

THE FARMER AND CHEF SERIES: WHAT FARMERS DO WRONG.

I'm walking beside Philip as we pass what I see as a thoroughly solid market table. It's not diverse, but it's stacked high with some of the better looking produce I've seen yet––healthy kale, turnips, radishes––all vibrant and fresh. Noticing that Philip hardly gives the table anything more than a passing glance, though, I ask him what he thinks about these farmers. He says they have some good stuff sometimes, but the price point is often too high, and they don't really try to work with him. And like that we're back in the truck and driving off to another market.If I can emphasize anything that I learned this day traveling around with Philip and Owen, it's the value of the actual relationship. The price points of our farm can be high, too. I know that. But they still come back to buy from us. Why? I didn't ask them this question directly, but I would assume it's because we will work with them, and because we get along well. So even when they don't want something we have, I almost always try to bring them something they do want so as not to waste their time––in fact, every farmer we spent any real time with that day, pulled something special for R.A.D. from underneath the table. But this isn't about what farmers do right––we'll get to that in later posts––this is about what farmers do to make someone like Philip and Owen lose interest.When I ask Owen to give me an example of what a farmer does wrong he sites one specific farmer who was often combative and would refuse to sell them things they wanted because she didn't want it to ruin her display. Notice the past tense in that sentence, because they stopped even trying. As a farmer, I get the empty table thing a little. I understand that you may not want someone coming first thing in the morning and taking all of your produce, leaving part or all of your table bare for the rest of the day, and you with nothing to do (most markets ask you stay until the end of the day before packing up). An empty table does not bring in customers. That being said, I know few farmers whose goal is to have anything less than an empty table at the end of the day. That's at least part of the point––to sell the food you bring. Also, with a good relationship to a chef, they may tell you what they are looking for in advance––"can you have twenty pounds of this for me next week?"––so you can plan for it and keep it off your table in the first place.Anyway, maybe this farmer, or the farmers I started this post with, just don't care to sell to restaurants. Because not all farmers do. Not all farmers see the value in it which begs the question, what is the value in selling to restaurants? At a busy market, you may have no reason to get rid of your produce early. You may have other regular customers who will pay full price for everything until you completely sell out week after week. So is it even worth building up that relationship? If they're paying a lower price, why should a farmer bother?For me, for starters, having worked in high level restaurants, I enjoy selling to them. I enjoy foraging or growing items I wouldn't normally bother with for a market table. I also like the idea of someone buying in bulk from us when I do not know what the market turnout will be––when I do not know what other farmers are bringing. They want forty pounds of tomatoes from the front table? Great. Because everyone else has them, too, and who knows if we'll be able to sell them otherwise. If we see or suspect we're the only ones who brought tomatoes that day, we might just ask full price for all of them, which means the chefs may not buy them. If I know I can get full price for something over the course of the day, I won't discount it and they understand that. They understand about the price because we have a good working relationship. So, finding the value in selling to chefs isn't much of a struggle for us.Though I know farmers who are successful at doing this, I don't want it to sound like an advertisement for selling only to chefs, thus neglecting the regular market customer. Not at all. In fact, we don't even remotely do that. We sell primarily to customers through a CSA, then we sell mostly specific, requested items to chefs like Philip and Owen (most of which we actually also do give in our CSA––daylillies for instance). Sure, they buy off our table, but mostly we bring them something they needed or wanted. Anyhow, I think it's important to consider the potential––the business potential––in building a relationship with chefs. Because the truth is you, along with the rest of the farmers, may have a bumper crop of amazing looking kale one week––more than you will ever sell in one fall market day––and the person who the chef is going to buy a pile from is the farmer who has made the effort to build a relationship. Even at a small discount––and they're not expecting free food here––it's a nice bit of security.How do you make this connection? Just stop them and talk to them. See what they need, sure, but more so, just tell them what you have. Shake their hands, tell them you see them at the market all the time and you'd love to work with them. Believe me, if you make the effort, they will take notice, and they will look at your table.There may be more posts on what farmers do wrong, but I say next week we do a post about what farmers do right, and what chefs do wrong. So stay tuned. Well, not literally. Go work, then check back next week. Oh, and feel free to add some commentary below––I'd love to hear what you think about the farmer/chef relationship.- Jesse.

THE FARMER AND CHEF SERIES: CHEF TO FARMER, NOT FARM TO TABLE.

In the name of full disclosure, Rolf and Daughters might be my favorite restaurant. I have worked and eaten at many great establishments over the years, but R.A.D.––as it so appropriately abbreviates––has served two of my most memorable meals. That being said, I suspected this may be the case long before I ever came in for dinner. The chef/owner, Philip Krajeck, has been coming to our farmers' market for several years now to buy produce. And for Philip, quality is paramount. He has bought loads of produce from us over those years but he has also turned down perfect-looking July carrots when the flavor wasn't there. He has passed on chanterelles when they seemed a little beyond their prime. I've always felt you can tell a good wine by simply talking to the winemaker, and I like to think you can tell a good restaurant by simply watching the chef at market. So I had no doubts, by this measure, that Rolf and Daughters would be good.But Rolf and Daughters isn't just a good restaurant, it's also an uniquely subtle one. The atmosphere is lively, italicized by fresh, creative food (and drink), that seems to prefer its focus be more on the experience than the chef––the experience than the farmer. No one at R.A.D. would likely describe the place as a farm-to-table, despite the fact that the chefs buy a vast majority of their food from local farmers. In fact, in the day I spent with them, they filled an entire pick-up truck full of food from no less than six different small farms. But this, as impressive as it is, is just not something they feel compelled to advertise. There are no blackboards with the farmers' names, no farmer portraits on the walls, nothing in their literature about farm-to-anything (in fact, nowhere in their online profiles does it even say who the chef is, let alone the farmers). They simply let the food advertise this for them.Curious about this, I asked Philip and his sous chef Owen Clark why Rolf and Daughters doesn't play up the farm-to-table thing, since they do it so legitimately. They both said they'd prefer to simply serve the best tasting food, and let the quality of that food reveal to people that it came from good farmers. "Doing it quietly," Philip added, "makes a bigger reverberation." And it has. Rolf and Daughters has already in their young existence been heaped with accolades including the number three Best New Restaurant from Bon Appétit in 2013. Moreover, you know it's reverberating because they are a mid- to high-end restaurant––in a city filled with mid- to high-end restaurants––that stays packed. In other words, when people want a nice meal, they may try other restaurants, but they go back to Rolf and Daughters. Again and again.Anyway, I felt it was important to profile Rolf and Daughters in this fashion to give you an idea of the type of chefs I was utilizing for this project. The ultimate goal is to understand how farmers can better serve chefs, and chefs can better serve farmers, so I needed a restaurant who greatly relied on these relationships to get to the bottom of it all. Next week, we'll dive a little further into those details––what farmers do right, what farmers do wrong, and we could all be doing better––so stay tuned.- Jesse.