Late Winter 2017: Breakfast by edible New Mexico

On any given weekend morning, you will find the dining room and patio at Albuquerque’s Farm & Table seated to capacity. Flaky biscuits smothered in green chile sausage gravy are set next to platters of freshly baked sticky buns and heavenly clouds of brioche French toast and whipped cream. Guests sip mimosas while gazing out onto the restaurant’s resident farm, Sol Harvest. The scene is bucolic and elegant, relaxing yet lively. “Brunch has become an enormous part of our identity,” says Carrie Eagle, Farm & Table’s executive chef. “We can have the same number of guests in two days of brunch as we do in four nights of dinner.” Farm & Table’s brunch menu, like their dinner fare, changes regularly, sometimes daily, to accommodate whatever fruits, vegetables, and foraged finds local farmers bring to the kitchen’s back door. The restaurant boasts that eighty percent of its ingredients—produce, meat, eggs, dairy, flour—at any time are local. Understandably, Eagle finds this commitment both inspiring and challenging. “There’s a lot of math involved with my job,” Eagle says. “When you’re dealing with big-volume farms or fooddelivery companies you can make one call and order twenty-five pounds of chard. But when you’re working with dozens of small local farms, you might get eight pounds from Sol Harvest before they’re tapped out, then you need ten from Chispas Farm, and another five from Vida Verde,” Eagle explains. “Then, if there’s a hard frost, there might not be any chard at all, and you have to totally rethink that week’s menu. But that’s at the heart of what we do: we are creative, resourceful, and we represent what New Mexico has to offer.” Eagle’s right-hand woman at Farm & Table is baker and pastry chef Tracy Johnson. Johnson grew up cooking northern New Mexican cuisine with her mother and grandmother, and Eagle will often consult her on regional dishes. “I taught Chef my family’s red chile recipe (you’ve got to roast your dried chile pods slightly before you blend),” says Johnson, “and if Chef is trying to figure something out, she’ll ask, ‘What would your mom do?’” Eagle says Johnson’s culinary heritage is why Farm & Table has the “best biscochitos in town.” She divulges, “Adding some liqueur makes them unbelievably flaky and crisp.” While Eagle designs Farm & Table’s much celebrated brunch and dinner menus, Johnson’s pastry, bread, and dessert creations can be real show-stoppers (think prickly pear cream puffs and pumpkin cheesecake). Her personal favorite is her Burqueño Road ice cream, which features housemade marshmallow fluff, chocolate, red chile caramel, and piñons. Like Eagle, Johnson must work within the confines of what is local, seasonal, and available. “We had a bumper year for stone fruit, which was great,” says Johnson. “But Chef and I were both hurting for winter squash, which failed all over the city.” Both chefs took a non-traditional path into fine dining. Eagle had a career in early childhood education before entering the restaurant world as a busser. By age twenty-seven, she had helped start JC’s New York Pizza Department in Albuquerque. With no formal training, she began to work her way up the culinary ladder, eventually managing and cooking for some of the finest

Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance and Rocky Mountain Farmers Union Present

Mountain West Seed Summit Honoring Origins

Seeding the Future

March 2nd Field Trip Tesuque Pueblo Farm and Seed Bank n $65

March 3–4, 2017 Hotel Santa Fe Santa Fe NM n $195* *$150 for RMSA (join now!) and RMFU members, and residents of New Mexico

T H E N E X T B E ST T H I N G T O

BEING THER E an extraordinary shop

wed. - sat. 10am to 6pm sun. 12pm to 5pm mon. & tues. closed

1315 mointain r d nw, abq, nm, 87104 (505) 433-3204 | beingther eabq.com