Ford thinks that local farmers like Lefty, who sell whole animals, provide a particular freedom to his kitchen. It forces him to get creative with cooking the less popular cuts and to focus on charcuterie and smoking the meats. “Since the animals that Lefty raises don’t come from a factory, each one is going to be a little different,” Ford stresses. “You have to be ready to take what he gives you and work intuitively through it. If the pig comes through the door with more fat on the back, we’ll make lardo. If the legs are really nice, we will take the time to butcher out and cure the culatello.” It is all about adapting on the fly. Hulme, from Tender Greens, has also become a quick fan of Lefty’s pork. This past summer, he launched a whole animal dinner series in the beer garden at the back of his restaurant that featured Lefty’s pork on two separate nights. Like Ford, Hulme believes that helping Lefty actually ends up helping Tender Greens in the long run. “We saw what was happening and believed in what he was doing. Not only did we build a relationship, we helped build up a small producer, which is part of our mission here at Tender Greens,” Hulme said. It isn’t just pigs that Hulme sources from Lefty. He also buys the occasional goat or free-range goose. On the night we met, Tender Greens offered a salad with heirloom Arkansas Black varietal apples from Lefty’s orchard. and the house bacon at the Hollywood Tender Greens is often smoked with apple or cherry wood from the same property. “One of my favorite things about having Lefty as a supplier is his proximity to the city. Given how busy most chefs are, I think it is a luxury to be able to drive 60 miles up the freeway to visit the animals and see how they are being raised. That connection to the process, starting from birth, is something I wouldn’t want to trade for convenience.”
E
ven with that growth, however, cash flow is still a consistent concern. The fuel costs in driving to and from the processor and to and from his customers add up to $300 per week. The processor charges him another $300 per week to harvest the animals and the feed costs run another $550 per week. That’s almost $60,000 per year in fixed costs that Lefty and Vicki have to cover
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before they make any profit. For a couple that is still recovering from their home foreclosure, it’s a rather daunting number. Both Lefty and Vicki readily admit that they are currently able to cover their costs because customers like McCall’s and Lindy & Grundy and Tender Greens and Ford’s Filling Station carry a credit with ReRide Ranch almost every week. These customers never hesitate to pay up front, knowing that the early payment helps defray the substantial fixed costs of raising the animals. This past summer, driving up a hill on his way back from making deliveries in Los Angeles, Lefty was about a mile from the house when his truck just died. The engine was fried because he had thrown a belt, and with 365,000 miles on the odometer, the engine didn’t stand a chance. “The truck had already been running on hope for five years,” Vicki says. “So,” Lefty added, “I figured out what it was going to take to buy the used truck that I wanted and I got on the phone and called Nathan, Erika and Amelia, Ben and Eric.” Those calls were made on a Thursday, Lefty was able to pick up the checks from his customers on Friday, and the truck was purchased on Saturday. “Those are the kind of customers we have,” Lefty boasts. “Had it not been for our wholesale customers standing with us, we would not be here today. Frankly, they may believe in us even more than we do.” Ford and Hulme will both tell you they not only believe in Lefty, the have a need for people like Lefty. “We need him as much as he needs us,” Ford stresses. “And so we need to do what we can to keep him around.” Similarly, Hulme says by helping him just that little bit with his truck, “Lefty goes out of his way to help us, to raise animals for us. It is all interconnected.”
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ash flow isn’t Lefty and Vicki’s only problem. The lack of easy access to a local USDA-certified meat processor looms large every day. Under the law in California, if a live pig, lamb, goat or cow is to be sold whole, by the farmer, directly to an individual customer, and not be portioned out and further sold to the public at large, it can be processed at a California Department