Farm-to-table has become such a cliché that when you open this latest cookbook from Michael Smith and find that the opening photo of him is that familiar staged shot of “chef pulling carrot from the fertile ground,” it’s hard not to get a bit of a sinking feeling.
But don’t worry about it. This best-selling cookbook author, TV host, and celebrity chef is not hopping late onto a tired bandwagon; Smith is the real deal. His Inn at Bay Fortune has a working eight-acre organic farm attached, with seven greenhouses, a seed house, sprout house, mushroom patch, pigs, chickens, the lot. And it yields more than enough produce to service its Fireworks Feast. If you want to know the rudiments of how that works, read the dozen-odd page-long explainers, on everything from regenerative farming to life-cycle harvesting, which opens the book.
If you want to know what it yields on the plate, tuck into the recipes that follow, which, in Smith’s cus- tomary style, are highly approachable, adaptable to substitution and assertively flavoursome. On the vegetarian end of the spectrum, think kabocha squash in ancho-cider broth with sage-and-pump- kin-seed pesto or grilled summer squash with poblano relish; on the protein-friendly side, potato, leek, mushroom and chicken skillet stew. And there are nifty cocktails, too (tomato Lillet splash, a herbaceous vodka-lemonade, etc.)
— STAFF
Photography by Al Douglas.
