By Lisa Kivirist •
April 9, 2009
Take a tip from Annie Somerville, acclaimed chef at the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, when you explore the upcoming first farmers’ market of the season, check out some of the more unusual, fresh fare that showcase spring flavor.
Chef Somerville knows her seasonal offerings. For the past 28 years, she has helped lead the Greens Restaurant to become a national showplace for creative, fresh, local vegetarian cuisine that features the local abundance from sustainable and organic California growers. Her signature dishes, like the Warm Cannelli Beans and Wilted Greens recipe below, draws inspiration from her regular forages at the Embarcadero Farmers’ Market and area farmers.
“At the market the last couple of weeks, you could really start seeing big indicators that the season is shifting and spring has officially arrived,” explains Chef Somerville, as she vividly and affectionately describes spring produce as if they were beloved old friends returning for a visit. For an artistic chef like Somerville, the farmers’ market provides a culinary palette, a place where she can wander and draw cooking inspiration from the ingredients she sees.
Take a tip from Chef Somerville and explore some of the more unusual, uniquely flavorful fare that appears this time of year. Here’s some ideas on using three of her favorites: Nettle, chervil and kale.
By John Ivanko •
March 18, 2009
For the last twenty-eight of the thirty years of the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, chef Annie Somerville has championed and celebrated all that sustainable, vegetarian cuisine can represent: local, seasonal, fresh, nutritious, healthy, tasty – and, especially, direct from the farm.
Since opening in 1979 in the rehabilitated warehouse at the Fort Mason Center, the Greens Restaurant has prospered by featuring the finest, local, seasonal organic ingredients, lovingly prepared by chef Somerville and her talented culinary artists to entice your palate and satisfy your hunger to make the world a better place. By how the Greens Restaurant operates, focusing on vegetarian cuisine from local, sustainable, organic farms and businesses featuring artisan foods, they’ve also been leaders in helping mitigate human impacts climate change.
My family and I sat down with Chef Somerville after a delicious meal of grilled polenta with roasted wild mushrooms, shallots and herb cream, followed by farro spaghetti with winter squash and greens as well as mesquite grilled brochettes, mushrooms, yellow finn potatoes, peppers, red onions, yams, fennel and Hodo Soy tofu with charmoula and almond cherry quinoa. Why wait for a taste of heaven? That practically all the ingredients for our vegetarian meal came fewer than a hundred miles away, all the better.
“It’s been a groundswell,” admits the personable and relaxed Somerville, this despite a rapidly filling restaurant on a Friday night. No sign of a downturn in business here in spite of the faltering economy, something shared in common among other ecopreneurial enterprises. “Our patrons savor our delicious food because they appreciate just how fresh it is. Because of this, I focus on simple preparations, drawing from the abundance of produce found at the local farmers’ market as well as direct from the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in the Marin Headlands and Bolinas’ Star Route Farms.” Her approach to simple vegetarian cuisine is celebrated in her two cookbooks, most recently Everyday Greens, and her earlier cookbook, Fields of Greens.
