At the end of a little dirt road in Owls Head, Maine, lies Headacre Farm, where I grow herbs, vegetables, flowers, and fruit, much of which goes to Café Miranda, the award-winning restaurant in nearby Rockland. Chef Kerry Altiero, the owner and driving force behind Café Miranda, owns the farm property. I lease the land from him for my business, which allows me to sell not only to the restaurant and its growing catering operation, but also to my own customers.
Kerry bought the property years ago intending to use it to grow produce for the restaurant. Seven years ago, over a couple of beers, I offered to help make that happen, and the rest is history, as they say. Chef Kerry and I have a great working relationship, bolstered by our long-standing friendship. We meet weekly to discuss farm operations, and, since the farm is also his home, we often meet right in the growing beds. I’ve been a big fan of his for years, and we share the same sense of excitement about great food.
The main garden is in the first field. It has two large sections, each of which is further divided. Within these, I created permanent raised beds of various widths and lengths, separated by paths. When I designed this area, my intention was to make it not only extremely productive but also beautiful. I grow companion and edible flowers at the ends of each growing bed, and also use them to separate different crops or varieties within the beds. I have devoted one large sub-section to a rotation of cutting flowers, including dahlias and sunflowers, and another to growing annual herbs like parsley, cilantro, fennel, dill, and some of the more exotic herbs like shiso. This year, I added a bed for perennial herbs such as oregano, tarragon, thyme, and lavender.
I expanded into the second field this summer. I plan to use these beds for those crops that either take up a lot of room, like winter squash and melons, or that Café Miranda needs great quantities of, such as kale, chard, parsley, spinach, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli.
I choose all of the vegetable varieties I grow at the farm, although I run the list by Chef Kerry early in the year. Kerry has been working with farmers and foragers since he was a young punk chef in the 1980s, so he knows his veggies. As a loyal Café Miranda customer, I know the menu intimately! When choosing what to grow, I have to keep in mind what the restaurant will use and how it will stand up in the wood-fired oven. Over the years, we’ve refined our selection of kale varieties, for example, to suit the needs of the restaurant. For the catering division of Café Miranda, I can grow more unusual varieties and types of vegetables, like semi-sweet frying peppers, frisée endive, and unusual radicchios.
I order seeds from Fedco, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, and Pinetree Seeds, all located in Maine; High Mowing Seeds in Vermont; and Territorial Seeds in Oregon. When choosing seeds, I try to find those that are grown organically, suit our northern climate, and are attractive and tasty while also having good disease resistance. I grow a number of heirloom varieties, such as the tomatoes ‘Cherokee Purple’ and ‘Green Zebra’ and flat-podded beans like ‘Northeaster’ and ‘Dragons Tongue.’ It doesn’t matter as much to me if a seed is an open-pollinated or hybrid variety as much as if it will meet our high standards of taste and quality. Over the years, I have experimented with different varieties to see what has worked well for both the farm and the restaurant, and now I have a great list of “tried and true” crops.
That doesn’t stop me from trying a few new things every year. That’s part of the fun!
Just about everything I grow at the farm is started by me, with the exception of rhubarb and some herb plants. The season begins in March in my two seed houses, where I start the seeds we’ll transplant into the beds, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, lettuce, etc. I start seeds all season long, as it allows me to create a continuous plant yield. Other seeds for crops like greens mixes, cilantro, radishes, carrots, and beets, for example, are directly sown into the planting beds at the right time and are also planted in succession, if appropriate.
The big challenge I face is producing enough to meet the needs of a busy restaurant while balancing my desire to grow specialty crops of very high quality. Here in Maine we also have to balance the growing season with the tourist season, when the restaurant is the busiest. To continue to address these issues, our plan for next year is to further expand the second growing area to increase production for the restaurant and add high tunnels to allow me to get the tender crops in earlier in the season so that they will mature at the right time for Café Miranda’s busiest months.
Chef Kerry and I also plan to continue to improve the farm in order to make it more sustainable while increasing its natural beauty. Most excitingly, we have been working over the past couple of years to turn the farm into an attractive venue for festive events catered by Café Miranda, using the main garden area as a backdrop. I will be working on getting the farm organically certified. I’ll also be offering intensive gardening classes at the farm next year.
First published December 2016
Farm Ocean Tree
This is the dish that won us first place in the Farm-to-Table competition at the annual Harvest on the Harbor festival in Portland. Every ingredient we used was from Maine: pork belly from Terra Optima Farm in Rockland, clams from the local flats, apple cider from Sewall Orchard in Lincolnville, sea salt from Marshfield, and the best butter I’ve ever had from Casco Bay Butter. Everything else was grown right at Headacre Farm. A dish like this shows how a hardscrabble region can yield the most delicious bounty, if you’re willing to look for it. As you’ve probably gathered, I don’t fetishize regional authenticity in my cooking, but I do think there is something special about a meal comprised of ingredients grown within miles of one another. This one highlights the three pillars of Maine agriculture: the field, the orchard and the sea.
Ingredients
- •227 grams (8 ounces) pork belly
- •Half an onion, sliced thinly
- •2 cloves garlic, peeled
- •1 bay leaf
- •5 ml (1 teaspoon) sea salt
- •177 ml (¾ cup) cider
- •100 grams (6 tablespoons) butter
- •5 leaves kale
- •2 sour apples, halved and cored
- •1 sprig thyme
- •6 littleneck clams, thoroughly washed
Preparation
Heat a 15 cm (6 inch) heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the pork belly well on all sides and remove from the heat. Add the onion, garlic, bay leaf, salt and cider to the skillet. Cover and return to the stove. Lower the heat to medium-low or low, to keep the contents below a boil. Cook for about 2 hours, or until the pork is fork-tender. You can do up to this point a day or two ahead and store it in the refrigerator.
Preheat your oven to 204ºC (400ºF).
Melt 28 grams (2 tablespoons) of the butter and liberally brush the kale with it. Set aside.
Remove the pork belly from the skillet (or refrigerator), reserving all the vegetables and liquid. Place the pork belly and apples (core side up) in a 23 cm (9 inch) oven-safe casserole dish or skillet. Evenly distribute the remaining 57 grams (4 tablespoons) of butter over the pork and inside the apples. Roast the pork and apples for 45 minutes, until the pork is thoroughly heated and the apples are soft and light brown.
Add the reserved liquid and vegetables to the casserole. Add the thyme sprig and submerge. Surround the pork with the clams. Cover the entire dish with the kale leaves. Return to the oven and cook for 30 minutes, or until the clams are fully open and the liquid is heated.
Serve to great acclaim.
Squash Risotto with Roasted Kale
On an –11ºC (12ºF) day last winter, I met with our farmer, Anne Perkins, to plan the next season’s plantings. I got thinking about how these kinds of meetings have been happening at the farm for so many generations. The Benner family owned the place from the ’40s through the ’90s, and after I moved in, their friend Ben, my 85-year-old neighbor, continued to store his carrots, squash, onions and potatoes in the basement next to the cistern. We’re now planning to grow more storage crops, which we’ll be storing in the same place.
Talking about all those hardy vegetables gave me a hankering for this squash risotto, which is a perfect comforting, hearty, vegetarian meal for a cold winter’s day. I think plain risotto should usually be served as an appetizer or side, as after a few bites the uniform texture and gentle flavor lose their appeal. Adding squash and kale, however, creates a variety of tastes and textures that stays delicious to the bottom of the bowl.
Ingredients
- •137 grams (1 cup) winter squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 2.5 cm (1 inch) cubes
- •66 grams (½ cup) onion, sliced
- •4 cloves garlic
- •1 bay leaf
- •Salt
- •Coarsely ground black pepper
- •255 grams (1½ cups) par-cooked risotto (see Note)
- •60 grams (2 cups) kale or hearty greens, stemmed, tossed in olive oil
- •2 sprigs thyme
Note: To make par-cooked risotto, melt 43 grams (3 tablespoons) butter and stir in 2000 grams (1 cup) Arborio rice. Stir slowly over low heat; do not brown. Add just enough water to cover and stir until it is absorbed. Repeat until 237 ml (1 cup) of water has been used. The par-cooked risotto may be spread on a baking sheet, cooled, and refrigerated until needed.
Preparation
Preheat your oven to 232ºC (450ºF). Put the rack in the middle. Spread the kale on a cookie sheet.
In a 4 to 5 liter (4 to 5 quart) heavy-bottomed pot, place the squash, onion, garlic and bay leaf. Cover with water. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Cook until the squash is fork-tender, 10 minutes or so. Strain, reserving 475 ml (2 cups) of liquid. The rest of the water is a good start for a vegetable stock.
In the same pot, add the rice to the squash mixture, with enough of the reserved liquid to just cover. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Stir constantly, but gently so that you don’t destroy the chunks of squash entirely. Some will deteriorate, which will flavor the rice.
As the water disappears, keep adding more, just to cover. Keep stirring to develop that risotto creaminess.
When you’ve used up half of the water, pop the greens into the oven. Cook them until light brown on the edges and the color has brightened up, about 8 minutes.
Add the thyme to the rice at this point. When you have run out of water, the rice should be tender, creaminess all around. If not, keep adding liquid, and stir, stir, stir. In the end it should be firm enough that the rice will pile rather than pour.
Pile it onto a warm platter with the kale around the edges. With the woodstove a-crankin, and the best company, it will be delightful.