Keegan-Filion -- Whole Hog Farming

Seems like Mark and Annie Filion just could not escape farming. Mark's grandfather raised chickens in Rhode Island, and Annie's grandfather farmed the Walterboro, SC property that they now call Keegan-Filion Farm. On this land they raise free-range chickens and hogs -- both sought after by Charleston chefs.

But, of course, their story does not wrap up quite so neatly. Their current operation began in 2004; yet, Mark and Annie first tried their hand at farming in 1986, raising commercial hogs for Smithfield. As the demand for such "factory pork" grew, smaller farmers like the Filions became priced out of the game. In 1994 they sold their remaining hogs and began leasing the land to other local farmers. Mark focused his attention on his "day job" as a sales manager for a pipe valve company, and Annie became a purchasing agent at a Walterboro plant.

Ten years later, Annie found herself working 50 to 60 hours a week and not getting anywhere. She wanted to do work that would benefit the community; so, the Filions sat down and came up with a couple of options. They debated between creating a taxi service for the elderly or starting an organic market, and in 2004, they opened The Farm Store right outside their front door. There, they sold all-natural produce purchased from a large distribution company out of Florida. They had moderate success at the beginning, but soon larger grocery stores and even Walmart began carrying some organics, which obviously hurt the demand for their small operation.

Luckily, the Filions had a fallback plan, whether they realized it or not. Concurrently with opening the market, they had once again begun to work their land. Over the past decade they had watched tenants basically destroy the property with bad farming practices, and they knew they had a long road ahead of them. First, they bought laying hens. This seemed a manageable project and a good way to rehabilitate the soil. Next came broiler chickens and finally hogs at the request of several Charleston chefs. The Filions had their doubts about entering the hog business again, but they moved ahead, determined to do it differently this time. They enlisted their good friend Bubba Craven as a business partner and began breeding a heritage line known as Tamworth.

The Fillions sold their first hog to Chef Craig Diehl (of Cypress restaurant) in 2007, and they both delivered the finished product to him with a bit of anxiety, worried he might not like their pork. They stood by as Chef Diehl began cutting chops, and Mark remembers his murmuring, "Oh...oh....oh..." Then Chef Diehl turned to them and said, "This is fantastic!"

The marbling of the Filions' pork has since become near legendary, and they really cannot keep up with the demand for their hogs or chickens. While this might sound like unequivocal success, the Filions still struggle. Producing superior flavor takes time, and, of course, time means money.

So, Mark continues to work his "day job"; now he manages industrial sales for another corporate entity. Basically, he spends his weeks on the road and his weekends on the farm. Annie works the farm with the full-time help of Bubba and a few other part-time employees, delivering to Charleston restaurants once a week and visiting the processing facility in Kingstree once every two weeks. All of this adds up to countless hours of labor and very little time together, but the Filions still deem it worthwhile. Every Saturday evening they go to church and then have dinner with Mark's mother at the local Greek restaurant, and for now maybe that's enough.

Of course, one day, Mark hopes to farm full time and possibly bring their son Jessie into the family business. But all in all, he seems satisfied and surprisingly unstressed.

"What we do is not any different than anyone else, except we also have about 4,000 animals that depend on us," he says without a bit of irony.

***

At the GO, we feel especially proud when Annie delivers a whole hog. We use every bit -- making everything from breakfast sausage to pate out of this delectable pork.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Living in New Orleans during Mardi Gras gives you a true understanding of the certain magic that city possesses. For weeks leading up to the actual day, the tension builds one parade at a time. Folks prepare their costumes as painstakingly as a bride planning a wedding. And when the big day finally arrives the entire city seems to hum with excitement. Whether watching the big parades reach Canal Street or reveling in the chaos of the French Quarter, everyone focuses on the sheer fun of living. For most Americans it's just another Tuesday, but for New Orleanians it's time to shine.

In honor of Mardi Gras, I offer up our recipe for Crawfish Etouffee -- a treat any time of the year but especially during the festive season.

Crawfish Etouffee

Most would refer to this as a classic Cajun dish -- meaning that its roots lie in the countryside southwest of New Orleans. Etouffer means "to smother" in French, which seems like a good connotation for this light stew. We keep ours pretty traditional -- starting with a roux, going in with your trinity (onions, celery, bell pepper), and finishing with the crawfish. You wind up with a heartwarming meal in very little time.

5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped onion (about 1/2 medium onion)
1/2 cup chopped celery (about 1 1/2 medium stalks)
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper (about 1/2 large bell pepper)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
Pinch of cayenne
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 3 medium garlic cloves)
1 quart chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth
About 20 sprigs of fresh thyme, tied together with kitchen twine
1 pound crawfish tails, cooked
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1 teaspoon hot sauce
Steamed white rice, for serving

Heat a large pot over medium heat. Add 4 tablespoons of butter and melt. Add 1/4 cup flour and cook, stirring constantly, until your roux has become a caramel color, about 10 minutes. Add onion, celery, and bell pepper; stir to combine. Add salt, oregano, black pepper, white pepper, cayenne, and red pepper flakes. Cook until onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add stock and thyme and bring to a simmer. Cook until reduced by half, about 30 minutes. Add crawfish, green onions, remaining tablespoon of butter, and hot sauce; stir to combine. Cook until crawfish are hot to touch, about 3 minutes.

Serve over steamed white rice with hot sauce for garnish.

Yield: 4 servings

P.S. You can easily order frozen crawfish tails online if they are not available in your area. We order ours from www.lacrawfish.com -- and they are superb. You can also substitute a pound of shrimp -- adding them with your green onions, butter, and hot sauce and cooking them until they are just pink and firm, about 5 minutes.

Wes Melling -- Hydroponic Hero

If you are an avid GO diner, you might have noticed a most intriguing cherry tomato garnishing our Straight from the Garden Salad from time to time. It’s almost purple – possessing a rather swarthy complexion – and its flavor is even more complex. First comes sweetness followed by a heady, earthy flavor – bringing to mind dark, rich soil. This is most ironic, considering these tomatoes are grown without any dirt whatsoever. Wes and Juanita Melling cultivate these Black Cherry Tomatoes (an heirloom variety) in their entirely hydroponic greenhouse in Moncks Corner.

There at Kurios Farms, they have over 6,000 plants – predominately, lettuce but also tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil. If you have never seen a hydroponic setup, it really is something to behold. From the outside, it might just be another greenhouse – a large white structure made of galvanized metal tubing with a plastic skin. And even when you first enter, it does not look so foreign. Rows upon rows of plants climb up wire trellises, and happy fruit hangs from vines. Bees even flit about, pollinating plants. But then you look down and notice there happens to be no dirt anywhere. Wes grows his plants in perlite – a crushed volcanic rock – and a maze of plastic tubes connects the plants. Water runs through these tubes delivering nutrients like calcium and pot ash, and this entire process is controlled by a silent sentinel that hangs on the front wall.

If you made a quick tour of the place, you might not even notice this Grower’s Choice computer, which controls all of the variables – humidity, temperature, feeding, cooling and air flow. During the height of the season, the plants are fed every 20 minutes for 3 minutes, and they use 1,500 gallons of water each day. It would be easy to give the computer too much credit – a bit like the Wizard in Oz – when, in reality, the Mellings deserve all the credit. They are constantly perusing the rows -- harvesting, pruning, and making sure those bees (which they buy bi-monthly) are doing their job.

Also, Wes is constantly reprogramming the computer, and he knows better than to blindly trust electronics. One year he noticed that his plants were not progressing at a normal rate, and he finally thought to check his ph meter. He discovered the calibration was off, which meant he was not treating his water correctly, and consequently, he had to rip everything out and start over.

“Every year things come up,” says Wes. “You think you have it all under control…”

Still, he would much rather tend to his plants than sit behind a desk. The Mellings moved to South Carolina from Ohio in 1999. Wes had worked in management at BF Goodrich for 12 years when they decided to move away from the cold weather. Originally, the Mellings planned on buying a floral shop in the Charleston area, but that deal fell apart and Wes began to look into other options. He says the hydroponic idea came from a magazine that described how you could make as much money off an eighth of an indoor acre as you could off 100 outdoor acres. Basically, the greenhouse would cost the same as a large tractor.

Wes had always loved gardening, and after visiting a hydroponic setup in Ohio, he decided to take the plunge. For $160,000, www.cropking.com provided all the pieces to build his operation and some technical support. Now, Wes talks casually about seriously scientific sounding topics like EC, or electrical continuity (which describes the amount of solids in the water) -- and he grows exquisite produce.

The Mellings sell their crops from the small storefront connected to the greenhouse and at the Summerville Farmers market. Their season is a bit different from outdoor farming, as it begins in November and ends in July. The plants must be torn out once a year, and July happens to be the perfect time due to the extreme heat and abundance of local tomatoes (which drives the prices down). This alternative growing season works out especially well for restaurants – allowing places like the GO to count on a consistent product during the winter months.

In July, the Mellings might try to take a little break and visit family in Ohio, but like traditional farmers, they are pretty bound to their trade. (They built a home that neighbors the greenhouse.)

“If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t do it,” Wes says. “If I figured out the time, I would make about $5 per hour.”

The Mellings’ son, Jarrod, does work with them, and Wes hopes he will take over the bulk of the work in the next few years. For now, his help proves invaluable with the more physical aspects of the job, like walking around on stilts to lower the plants when they reach the top of the trellis. It’s idiosyncrasies like this that make hydroponic gardening so unique and add a certain intrigue to the entire process. But when you ask Wes how he most enjoys his own product he gives a simple answer, “The tomatoes are nice sliced, and the lettuce is good on sandwiches,” he says.

The Woman Behind the Golden Eggs

Celeste Albers is an iconic figure in the Lowcountry farming community. Her Sea Island Eggs are coveted by Charleston restaurants, and at the GO, we are lucky to serve them.

Cracking one open reveals a yolk as golden as a sunset. They literally make our bearnaise, deviled eggs, and desserts. During the heat of summer when the hens simply refuse to lay enough, we enter a time of mourning. We substitute other high-quality, farm-fresh eggs, but the bearnaise turns a pale yellow, more reminiscent of the washed-out midday sun than its evening splendor.

So who is the woman behind the golden eggs? Celeste’s roots lie in the Lowcountry. Her grandfather shrimped in Bulls Bay and ran a country store on Highway 17 near Awendaw. However, her father left farming to earn an accounting degree and wound up working for DuPont in Delaware. She remembers that he hated his job, and he eventually ended up back in Awendaw, farming the family land.

In 1993, Celeste moved down with her baby daughter, Erin, and joined him. She began selling their produce at the fledgling Charleston Farmers Market. There she met George Albers, who was selling his own produce. Celeste remembers that George used to stop by her booth, buy some of her wild blackberries, and chat for a while.

“It was the blackberries that did it,” says Celeste. “George stole me away from my dad, and before you knew it we had one booth instead of two.”

Together, they have navigated the rough terrain of making a living off the land. They have grown vegetables, shrimped, and finally raised chickens and cows. None of it has proven easy, especially since they lease rather than own their property -- negating any meager security you might expect a farmer to have. Furthermore, they physically labor every day of the year.

But Celeste maintains that she would rather this than a lifetime of working a job she hates. These days they do seem to have found their niche: focusing on their egg and raw milk production. And among those in the know, their product has achieved a cult-like following.

At the GO, we regularly receive phone calls from avid Celeste fans wanting to reserve their eggs and milk, and I truly understand their reverence. When the eggs become scarce, I reserve them for use only in our bread pudding, and with each of the 40 eggs I crack, I give thanks to Celeste.

Papa's Oyster Stew

Here, in Charleston we are lucky to have some warmer weather thawing us out, but I know that winter still has its hold on the folks up North! And regardless of your geographic location I am sure that everyone could a little gustatory hug as February drags on...

Well, I happen to have the perfect dish -- my father's oyster stew! Of course, you will need some freshly shucked oysters, but even inland states have great seafood markets! Seek one out and try out this simple, elegant dish for your next dinner party.

Papa's Oyster Stew

Every holiday season of my youth my father and I would go buy a Christmas tree together, and then we would buy quarts of freshly shucked oysters to make his famous stew while trimming the tree. Freshly shucked oysters may seem a bit incongruous if you remember that my hometown is the extremely inland hamlet of Columbus, Georgia. But my father's good friends, the Lunsfords, owned Rose Hill Seafood where they brought in oysters straight from Apalachicola, Florida. The flavor of those oysters and especially this stew is the flavor of my childhood.

1 quart shucked oysters and their liquor
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups chopped onion (about 1 medium onion)
3 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon kosher salt, more to taste
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Oyster crackers, for garnish

Place the oysters in a colander set over a bowl to drain off liquor. Reserve liquor and oysters.

Melt butter in a medium pot over medium heat. When foam subsides, add the onions and cook until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the reserved oyster liquor and cook until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Add the milk and cream; bring to a simmer. Add the oysters; cook until their outer edges begin to curl, about 5 minutes. Serve hot with oyster crackers.

YIELD: About 4 entree servings

P.S. The stew might require more salt depending on the salinity of the oysters, but it is best not to oversalt at the outset.

P.P.S. I love a lot of black pepper in creamy dishes like this stew, but feel free to use less than the recommended 2 teaspoons if your palate is sensitive to spice.

Red Velvet Again -- For Valentine's Baking!

Just in case anyone wants to make a festive dessert for our favorite Hallmark holiday...I am reposting my recipe for Red Velvet Pound Cake!

Sarah's Red Velvet Pound Cake

Mystery surrounds the Red Velvet Cake; the particulars of its origin and ingredients vary from cook to cook. But any bona fide Southerner better have one in their repertoire. Mine comes in the form of a pound cake, as I feel the density stands up beautifully to all that cream cheese frosting! And I certainly don't go light on the food coloring, since red is the point, after all.

2 ½ cups sugar
8 large eggs
1 14-ounce can condensed milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 pound unsalted butter, melted
2 ¼ cups cake flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup red food coloring
Cream Cheese Frosting (see recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a Bundt pan with softened butter and then dust with cocoa powder.

Combine sugar, eggs, condensed milk, vanilla, and salt in a food processor; mix until combined. While running, pour butter into food processor bowl and continue running until thoroughly combined. Pour this mixture into a large mixing bowl. Sift flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder into egg mixture, whisking as you go. Add red food coloring; whisk to combine. Pour batter into pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 1/2 hours. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Release from pan onto serving plate.

Allow to thoroughly cool.

Applying frosting to a cake is a battle against crumbs. It is easier done when the cake is cold since it will be less likely to crumble; thus, there will be several trips back and forth to the refrigerator during the icing process.

To frost: Refrigerate the cake until cold. Once cold, remove the cake and apply a thin layer of Cream Cheese Frosting using an icing spatula. Return cake to refrigerator until frosting hardens. Remove cake and apply remaining frosting using icing spatula. Refrigerate until frosting stiffens up a bit. Slice while cold, but cake is best served at room temperature.

YIELD: 16 to 20 servings

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
24 ounces cream cheese, softened
15 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Combine the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice and mix on low speed until combined.

P.S. The icing can be made in advance and refrigerated but should be brought to room temperature before using.

Glenn Roberts -- Father of Anson Mills

To understand the mind of artisanal grain guru Glenn Roberts, you must imagine a raging fire of knowledge. A quick conversation with him could jump from his mother's black-skillet cooking to moonshine to his cultivation of true benne. Do not be fooled by the seemingly random nature of these topics. Inside his mind, Glenn connects all sorts of ideas, just in a roundabout way. Eventually, most wind back to his brainchild, Anson Mills, and the art of seed preservation.

Glenn officially founded Anson Mills in 1998 and began supplying heritage strands of rice and corn products to chefs around the country from his home base in Columbia, South Carolina. However, the cultivation of Anson Mills began long before that year, back before Glenn even considered farming as a career option. Glenn uses the word "nonlinear" to describe his professional track, and he does so with pride. "My idea was to be as counter intuitive as possible," he says.

Glenn was born in Delaware and raised in California, but his mother, Mary Elizabeth Clifton, has deep ties to the South. During the early 1900s her father owned hotels all along the eastern seaboard that catered to horse racing tracks. This afforded them a lodge near Savannah, a house on South Carolina's Edisto Island, and an African American cook and nanny who taught her the secrets of black-skillet cooking. In fact, she grew up pounding kitchen rice and hand-milling grits at their house on Edisto.

All of these lessons became exceedingly valuable when the Depression hit, and their family went from being comfortable to hoping they would not lose everything. Ultimately, Glenn's grandfather decided the best place for his daughter would be at the helm of their hotel in Aiken, South Carolina. Thus, she began running this property at age 14 in the depths of the Depression . "She was feeding more people out the back door than the front door," says Glenn. "Black and white -- everyone was poor."

Eventually, his mother moved back to Delaware, and there she met his father. Their common love of music brought them together: he was the church choir director, and she was a talented vocalist. This passion ultimately led them to La Jolla, California, where they could study under the plethora of musicians that performed at the Hollywood Bowl.

Despite the move, Mary Elizabeth kept up her southern culinary ways, centered largely on rice. Glenn remembers that the cooking of rice was a ritual in their house that denoted a sense of honor. He also remembers, with a smile, that he was only allowed to cook rice for the dog. While Glenn treasures all of these kitchen memories now, at the time, he wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut. This never materialized, but he excelled in his studies and went to college at age 14 on a music and math scholarship. The college happened to be the University of North Carolina, and just like that his southern roots reconnected.

Glenn worked a myriad of jobs during college -- none without purpose. As a doffer in a twine factory, he saw the power of primitive water-driven machinery. And as a musician he toured around the southeast extensively -- experiencing firsthand the culture of the region his mother remembered fondly.

His major in topology -- a branch of mathematics specializing in distorting an object's spacial properties -- enabled him to break into the world of architecture upon graduation, and in this world he found his professional footing. He worked with one of the top firms at the time, and eventually developed hotel/restaurant design as his specialty. Glenn traveled up and down the Eastern seaboard resurrecting historic properties. He especially loved this line of work, as he loved working with chefs. He remembers that at the time, during the 1970s, there was a definite lack of locality in restaurant cuisine. The chefs that recognized this missing connection between farm and table happened to be those who came over from Europe to work at hotels.

"These great European chefs had walked away from a system of people [farmers] bringing stuff to their back doors," says Glenn.

Their interest in the agriculture behind the food lodged in Glenn's mind, right beside his mother's stories of freshly milled rice and grits. He had been sending her grits throughout his southern travels trying to satisfy her childhood memories, but she finally told him to stop wasting his time because they lacked any real flavor. "She wasn't trying to hurt anyone's feelings," says Glenn. "She just had a keen palate and remembered what they tasted like."

These thoughts came together just as Glenn approached burnout in the design world. He decided to take a break and chose Charleston as his retreat. He lived at the beach and found work on Junior Magwood's shrimp boat. Despite Glenn's desire to "do nothing" for a while, he gradually found himself pulled into the Charleston food community. A rediscovery of local foodways seemed to be underway, and Glenn could not help but join the effort. He met farmers like George and Celeste Albers and found work at Perdita's restaurant. There, he cooked, but perhaps more importantly he developed relationships with the largely African American staff who had been there since 1952. "They remembered everything from their grandparents...stuff that wasn't normal uptown food in Charleston at the time," says Glenn.

All of this simply added fuel to Glenn's fire. That tiny flame lit by his mother began to burn brighter, and before he knew it Glenn found himself filled with a burning desire to resurrect historic foodways -- specifically artisanal grains, and even more specifically Carolina Gold Rice. Thankfully, he already knew some of the key players like Dick and Tricia Schulze who had repatriated Carolina Gold Rice on their plantation near Savannah.

The Schulzes came by their seed through Texas A&M University, and Glenn sought out seed there as well. Luckily, he came away with not just seed but also the acquaintances of a leading corn and rice geneticist Dr. Anna McClung and a renowned entomologist, Dr. Merle Shepherd. Both provided and continue to provide invaluable assistance in his grain cultivation.

Finding the heirloom varieties of corn would require Glenn to dig a bit deeper in his past. He knew that, sadly, corn had become one of America's most industrialized crops and consequently, an extremely homogenized crop. Many of the historic lines of corn that possessed complex flavor and aroma also happened to be difficult to grow. So the question became, "Who might still have corn seed that dated back before industrialized farming became such a dominant force?"

Glenn remembered from his days at the North Carolina twine factory that there had been much talk of bootleggers. The reality (legal or not) was that generations of rural southerners survived on their proficiency in distilling corn whiskey. This was a lifestyle that did not allow them to buy seed from the local co-op; but rather, they saved seeds from their crops year after year (going back decades). Through avenues that only Glenn could drum up, he found one such family that appreciated his interest in their agriculture and eventually grew a field of corn for him.

This first field of corn proved a valuable lesson for Glenn when a wind storm blew the entire crop down in a matter of minutes. The next year he grew smaller plots in multiple locations, and he finally yielded his first crop of corn. Of course, he sent some to his mother and took some back to the staff at Perdita's. The flavor brought back the memories that Glenn had sought out for so long.

Glenn specifically remembers when he finally succeeded in bringing his mother some freshly milled rice. "Quiet reflection over a bowl of rice is something to behold," he says.

Corn and rice proved just the beginning for Glenn; now he cultivates heritage wheat, peas, and more. However, Glenn insists that, at heart, he is a "rice guy." Unfortunately, the economics of growing heritage rice prove entirely unprofitable. "It's not a business venture, but a cultural venture," says Glenn. Thankfully, the other crops help sustain his efforts.

Glenn's steadfast dedication to quality demonstrated in such painstaking practices as cold-milling and on-demand production have garnered him quite a following from the very beginning. Top southern chefs like Anne Quatrono, Louis Osteen, and Frank Stitt bought Glenn's first corn and rice, and others from around the country soon followed suit. Within the first few years Charlie Trotter, Thomas Keller, and Daniel Boulud all recognized the importance of Glenn's vision and the superior product he provided.

However, it must be noted that despite his celebrity chef roster and unequivocal success, Glenn shrugs off any praise. His primary allegiance remains the same -- the preservation of heritage seeds. Through Anson Mills and the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, he seeks to enlist farmers on his mission. Not only does Glenn contract farmers in growing the crops but also in milling the product. He proclaims with pride that even his accountant can operate a combine. Glenn assists in all areas of the process -- from the field to the mill to the paperwork. His longtime business ally, Catherine Schopfer, brokers the grains, which basically entails constant communication with their commercial customers. Glenn's wife, Kay, is a free-lance writer who met him when the New York Times sent her down South to capture his story. Now, she attempts to capture his knowledge for use on the Anson Mills website -- www.ansonmills.com -- which catalogs their various products.

Daring to distill the facts running through Glenn's head should be lauded. Like his ambition they seem ceaseless. Glenn has a favorite expression when describing folks he really admires -- from farmers to geneticists. He will say that they have forgotten more than most of us know. The irony is that he does not realize this statement describes himself perfectly.

Glenn Roberts has definitely forgotten more than most of know, and he's still learning.

***

At the GO we use Anson Mills "Carolina Whole Hominy Quick Yellow Grits" and Sea Island Red Peas.

You may buy directly from the Anson Mills website -- www.ansonmills.com