Pasture Prime Farms

We have a crazy week coming up so while it was slow we took the crew out to Torm Siverson's Pasture Prime Farm for a little field trip. I took a couple of videos so check it out see what we were up to. I will warn there is some graphic nature to these videos, we don't show any animal being killed but pretty much everything right after that point in on the video. If you have a problem with this then don't watch it. Chicken doesn't just fall out of the sky and land on your plate, someone has to do this.
With this in mind Torm goes above and beyond to provide a comfortable and caring environment while the animals are with us. He has a great pyrenees that was raised with chickens. He now lives with Torm's red ranger and poulet rouge breeds to watch over them and protect agaisnt any predators until they are big enough to fend for themselves. The chickens are rotated like crops from field to field, fertilizing the land to help with grass growth come spring. The grass in turn will feed the 140 head of Wagyu cattle that also inhabit the 400 plus acres here in Summerfield, Florida. There will be more videos to come about Pasture Prime Farms

Sushi Pop

Check our blog roll and you will see a new site that has just "POP'd" up. Sushi Pop has opened in Oviedo,Fl. One of my former sous chefs, Michael Gleason, is back in town teaming with resident sushi mastermind Chau delivering some really great food. A small operation presenting old school sushi and main courses with a twist. Japanese pop culture is the overall theme complete with anime playing on flatscreens, creative server attire, bonsai trees galore and a cool ass check presenter, oh yeah and the food is good to boot. Modern equipment and technique are in place. Check them out as this budding restaurant makes a name for itself, Oviedo finally has a restaurant that is not corporate, bland B.S. Congrats Mike and Chau, we will be back.

In the works

2011 so far has been filled with some great opportunities and products that have come our way. Tomorrow we will be in the kitchen prepping for a photo shoot with chef's garden products. Last week we put together some great dishes to shoot but with our resident photographer out on medical leave. With insufficient lighting due to poor weather we lost the natural light that shines throughout our private dining room and really makes the colors pop. We got some good photos but not great so we have one more opportunity to get it right. We hired outside help so in the end we should have some sweet, cleaned up photos of the food that will hopefully make it into the chef's garden mailings and email blasts. Be on the lookout for some bluezoo/Chef's garden inspired dishes headed your way in the near future.

Tuesday, January 18th we are making another homage to Torm Siverson's Pasture Prime Farm with the bluezoo crew. I have also invited some chef friends from around the area to join us on our excursion. We will be touring the farm, checking in on our favorite mangalitsa pigs, some new berkshires, red ranger and poulet rouge chickens that we will be processing on site, as well as the grass fed wagyu cattle that made pasture prime what it is today. I should have a nice post up on it later next week. What's not to enjoy, farm tour, lunch at the farm, some serious education on how farm life really is, history, and of course we Florida boys and girls love our firearms so some target practice and accuracy side bets may come into play. That should fill up just enough time to haul ass back to the restaurant and feel inspired to create some exciting dishes.
We did this last year in April and since then we have a lot of new faces in the front and back of the house. Many of them have never seen how a family run local farm works and hopefully this will provide a much needed break from the monotony as well as invaluable information that will result in higher sales of Torm's product, a story to tell the guests, and ultimately an increased level of respect for our products.