Last Saturday morning, I met several Chef Studio students at Crema. They’d all come to tour a culinary garden that my husband and I recently created, but I wanted to give them the background before they arrived at the gardens.
My husband and I own Verdura Culinary Gardens, a service that provides clients with a full-season vegetable garden planting plan to help gardeners grow their own backyard organic vegetables. On this Saturday, I wanted to take the students on a tour of Penelope’s Giving Garden, which we recently installed for a couple who had adopted Penelope, a four-year-old girl born into poverty and hunger.
I told the students that because our clients wanted to make a difference for other hungry folks in Portland, they hired us to convert their large urban yard into an organic garden that would be dedicated to feeding people. We partnered with Birch Community Services, a local food bank that serves the working poor, and together with BCSI volunteers have since installed 15 raised beds on the property. This is the garden to which I took Tagg, Nick, Porter, Amie and Anne last Saturday morning.
We spent about an hour and a half touring the garden, which is currently transitioning from summer harvest 
to fall plantings. I talked to the students about growing organically, utilizing vertical growing techniques, raised bed gardening, companion planting, fall gardening, and pest control. They asked a lot of great questions. They were able to smell herbs, sample tomatoes, compare the flavor of three different kinds of carrots, and dig for potatoes with their hands. Little Penelope (who has grown a good two inches since I saw her last) had just returned with her parents from an extended trip to Buenos Aires, and charmed the entire group with her energy and delight in her garden.
Once we returned to the studio, we made a simple lunch: soupe au pistou. I talked to the students about the way such a dish can be adapted to any season and ingredients. We also discussed and made pesto, as well as a plum tart from some Damson plums I had just harvested in my back yard. We tasted four regional cheeses (from Rogue Creamery, Juniper Grove, Cowgirl Creamery and Ancient Heritage Dairy) and we had a conversation about cheese making in our region. We finished the meal with a bit of leftover sponge cake we found, topped with lightly sugared local strawberries (such a surprise at the market!) and cream flavored with some of the leftover juice from the macerated plums.
Our weather was perfect and the students were delightful. All five of the students are competent, energetic, and enthusiastic and it has been an honor to work with them. –Caroline Lewis
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