“This is one of the best things ever invented in the history of the world,” Sean Baker joked, referring to a vegetable peeler that he then used to shave an asparagus.
After a few shavings, the peeler didn’t work as well as expected. “I built it up a little too much,” he said with a laugh.
Baker, 30, named Esquire magazine’s 2010 “Chef of the Year,” was on hand Wednesday as part of the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show’s first Chef Stage, which provides cooking demonstrations to incorporate and promote many organic vegetables one can grow in one’s own garden or find at a local farmers market. Organizers plan to make it an annual event.
From now until Sunday, Chef Stage will feature half a dozen California chefs, including Michelin-starred Roland Passot and Jeffrey Stout as well as Alice Waters, a pioneer of the California local food movement.
Gather, the Berkeley restaurant that Baker co-owns and where he serves as executive chef, serves only organic and sustainable food.
“He directly contracts and buys his foods from farmers. Everything is totally sustainable — they are very careful about where they source all their meat and fish from,” said Joan Simon of Full Plate Consulting, who was brought in by the garden show to help craft some of the food and chef-oriented programs.
“His menu is basically half-vegetarian, half-meat, but you’ll find the food is so delicious that meat-eaters are always ordering the vegetarian items,” she said.
Baker said he prides himself on the diner-friendly menu at Gather.
“I cater to everyone — lactose-intolerant, vegan … I want them all to come to the restaurant,” he said. In fact, his vegan charcuterie was listed as one of Food and Wine’s 10 best restaurant dishes of 2010.
Over the course of an hour, Baker showed the audience how to make salads with both blanched and shaved raw asparagus, and he allowed the entire audience of more than 100 people to sample his strawberry-kumquat salad, a dish he serves at Gather.
“It’s yummy; I never knew you could eat fava leaves before,” said Terry Dunlap, 59, as she tasted some of Baker’s salad. “He’s mixed fruits with greens … and who knew you would put vanilla salt (in a salad)?”
Dunlap traveled all the way from Davis to make her eighth-annual visit to the garden show. She wasn’t the only one who traveled from out of town to visit the event.
“I love to cook, and I’m writing a cookbook, so my friend and I wanted to come to the Chef Stage,” said Gary Harrold, 66, who visited from Santa Cruz County.
“He uses all kinds of different olive oils,” Harrold said, referring to a short discussion by Baker about which olive oils complement dishes better. “Some are more buttery, some are more peppery, and I was really impressed by that, how sensitive it is to one’s palate.”
The event’s organizers are aware some might not equate cooking demonstrations with a flower and garden show, but to them, it makes a lot of sense in light of today’s organic food movement.
“There’s this surge of interest now. More and more people are realizing that you can have an edible garden that is quite attractive. For a long time they just thought it could either look like a farm or a (flower) garden, one or the other,” said Jay Esty, events coordinator for the show.
Esty, the former membership manager of the San Francisco Botanical Garden, said he was partly inspired by the vegetables the botanical garden was able to grow, including fava beans, lettuce and spinach.
“We thought, let’s address that growing interest,” he said. “Let’s make sure we address people who have questions about how they can raise produce at home, how do you do it and what can you do with it once you got it.”
Baker’s strawberry-kumquat salad recipe is published on his restaurant’s website at www.gatherrestaurant.com. For a list of Chef Stage events through Sunday, visit www.sfgardenshow.com.
ABOUT Chef Sean Baker
Esquire magazine’s 2010 “Chef of the Year” co-owns the Berkeley restaurant Gather. He serves as executive chef there and cooks organic sustainable food. His vegan charcuterie was listed as one of Food and Wine’s 10 best dishes of 2010.