SAVOR THE SUMMER

For every season at McEvoy Ranch, there's a time to sow, a time to reap and always, a time for lunch.

BY JEAN VICTOR
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHERI GIBLIN

The mulch-covered path from kitchen garden to dining table at McEvoy Ranch is only a few strides long, the time from harvest to prep sink so brief that dew still clings to the baby lettuces destined for lunch. Raised beds just steps from the kitchen door rein in a colorful tangle of organic vegetables, herbs and flowers, while trees nearby in the apple orchard dangle with Granny Smiths used to cleanse the palate between tastings of the Tuscan-style extra-virgin olive oil for which the ranch is known.

Though making olive oil is the main business at hand, owner Nan McEvoy's vision is to create a self-sustaining environment at the 550-acre ranch in the hills west of Petaluma. This includes the thriving certified organic garden, which provides produce not only for the family and daily staff lunches prepared by chefs Gerald Gass and Mark Rohrmeier, but also for local farmers markets and the Marin Organic School Lunch program. Lemons are harvested for the ranch's estate-made marmalade, pears for the spiced jam, rose petals and lavender for soaps and salves.

(Clockwise) Like stalls at a farmers market, raised beds in the kitchen garden show off produce ready for the picking; ranunculus frames the beds; the wood-fired oven sits on the garden's edge; the olive orchards are the pride of this 550-acre ranch; sheep graze on cover crops.

Planning the day's lunch menu starts early in the morning, when head gardener Margaret Koski-Kent surveys the beds and lets the kitchen know what's available: whether the beans are at their peak tenderness, the tomatoes ready to pluck from the vines or the peas abundant enough to feed a crowd. Chef Gerald Gass—who worked with Joyce Goldstein at Square One in San Francisco before coming to the ranch in 1996—enjoys the creative challenge of cooking based on what the garden has to offer. "It's the way I like to cook," says Gass. "You can always go to the store and find anything, but it's more inspiring to see the possibilities in what we have on hand each day." True to the Italian roots of his cooking style, Gass keeps the recipes honest and straightforward—besides olive oil, his favorite ingredient is sea salt, a simple culinary expression that enhances the flavor of the harvest.

"Since everyone has to return to work after lunch, I try to prepare light dishes, often with seafood," Gass says. On a recent spring morning, he decides on sturgeon with a sauce made from fresh garden peas, along with roasted asparagus, a salad of heirloom lettuces and Cowgirl Creamery cheese and, for dessert, rhubarb crisp with homemade buttermilk and crème fraîche ice cream. In the expansive farm-style kitchen, Gass moves between tasks with the relaxed but purposeful pace of a chef in his element, shelling the peas at the sink one minute, then heading outside to the wood-fired oven, where he keeps a watchful eye on the sturgeon roasting in the 600-degree heat.

Providing the chefs with a year-round bounty of seasonal produce requires a careful sequence of planting, nurturing and harvesting by Koski-Kent and her crew. Using biodynamic principles to help organize her calendar, she starts everything from organic seed, mostly varieties she's gathered and saved from her own plants. In all, she orchestrates upwards of 500 sowings a year.

(Left) The harvest is only the middle of the season for head gardener Margaret Koski-Kent, who saves seeds for future plantings. (Middle) Netting protects growing crops from birds near the greenhouse. (Right) Koski-Kent mixes flowers and edibles in her bouquets for the dining table.

Though she brings a horticulturalist's training to the tasks, Koski-Kent's connection to soil and seed and the daily rhythm of the garden clearly comes straight from the heart. "There's nothing better for me as a gardener than the moment when I'm holding seeds in my hand, ready to plant them, knowing that each one contains part of the past and part of the future. I believe my purpose is to nudge them into the future," she says. "The challenge is that timing is so important to everything we do. Sometimes with all of these different plants and all of their different needs, I feel like they're all calling to me at once. It's about making things happen when they need to happen. It's the connectedness between all the things we do in the garden that is so powerful to me."

Koski-Kent credits the health of the garden, and the success of her produce, to the mix of strictly organic gardening methods she follows—planting cover crops and amending the soil with a dark and wormy blend of compost made from kitchen scraps and garden waste, layered with straw and chicken manure from the ranch's brood of hens. She also keeps the soil in balance by constantly rotating crops, planting broccoli and cabbage in a bed one season, followed by beets and carrots in the same bed the next, and peas the season after that.

The ranch's head chef Gerald Gass commands the kitchen and wood-fired oven, where he turns produce from the garden into a lunch that is the essence of fresh and local. Roasted asparagus and freshly shelled peas are a simple but flavorful addition to the day's menu.

Flowers like ranunculus and agrostemma are interspersed with the edibles for color and bouquets, but also for the beneficial insects they attract, and if a nasturtium self-sows in a spot where it wasn't originally intended or a climbing rose takes off into the branches of an olive tree, all the better in Koski-Kent's opinion. "I love to let the happy accidents happen," she says. "If every bed was tidy and symmetrical, you'd walk right by, but when things are a little wild and off center, you pause and take notice. I like the controlled wildness of letting some things go. It's healthy for the garden and the spirit."

Shortly after noon, the staff filters into the kitchen, gathering around the pine table for their midday repast. They compare notes on the latest happenings at the ranch, including talk of the wind turbine being built to power the olive mill, and plans to bring back the old Tuscan tradition of interplanting grapevines with the olive trees in some of the orchards. Before tasting the first bite of Gass' latest creation, Koski-Kent drizzles a golden-green thread of olive oil over her plate, as conversation circles back to the anticipation of heirloom tomatoes, grown from the seeds of last summer.

Grilled Sturgeon with Asparagus and Peas
Serves 4

4 skinless sturgeon fillets, 5 to 6 ounces each
Sea salt or kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
McEvoy of Marin extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound English peas, shelled (reserve pods)
5 spearmint leaves
½ small white or yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 pound asparagus

• Snap the tough bases from the asparagus spears and discard. Place the asparagus on a baking sheet and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, ½ teaspoon salt and black pepper to taste. Toss to coat.

• Put the onion in a heavy-bottomed 3-quart pan along with 2 tablespoons olive oil and ½ teaspoon salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until the onion is soft but not browned. When the onion is tender, increase the heat to high and add the reserved pea pods. Stir-fry for 30 seconds to coat the pods with oil. Add 3 cups water and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat, maintaining a strong boil, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

• Remove from heat and place mixture in blender, along with the spearmint leaves. Starting on low speed, blend for one minute, slowly increasing the speed to high. Press mixture through a fine strainer into a small saucepan. Discard solids. Add reserved peas to liquid and simmer over low heat until peas are tender. Season to taste and keep warm.

• Sprinkle sturgeon with 2 teaspoons olive oil, ½ teaspoon salt and black pepper to taste. Grill fish over a medium-hot fire until done, about 4 minutes per side. While fish is cooking, grill asparagus, turning occasionally, until done.

• To serve, arrange asparagus on four warmed dinner plates. Ladle as much of the pea mixture over the asparagus as the plates will allow, and top with the fish portions.