From Chef Vincent

Turning towards a different kind of work.

Let me explain.

You may have heard that I am taking time off to work on my writing. Which raises the question: writing what?

When we first opened Orchard Kitchen, I began documenting my thought process and experience as the restaurant took flight. That writing focused on how Tyla and I came to have a vision for a restaurant on Whidbey Island, the physical description of this place, and the processes that we went through to open our doors to the public. I also wrote short essays about each week’s menus and the life on the farm.

Over the years I have continued to write about how it feels to live this project, why I think it's important, and to try and explain the thinking behind why someone would do this to themselves; that is to say, being a restauranteur and farmer. If you ask around and you'll realize that either one of those occupations is adequately challenging; the combination should only be attempted together if it's truly your avocation. That's the case for me.

Timing is everything...(cont. below)

...This project that we call Orchard Kitchen is about a very specific place and at a very specific time. The place is this piece of land that sits at 48° N latitude in the middle of the Salish Sea, and the time is now; whatever season it is when you visit. Here we set out to grow the food that we serve our guests, and we have relied on and poured our hearts into this piece of dirt, and it has nourished thousands in return. We have not sought to make a menu that is perfect, polished and rehearsed; real adherence to seasonality simply does not allow that. Rather our menu reflects improvisation based upon what the land is telling us each week. Because that varies from week to week, we do not repeat preparations. Instead, we allow the land to guide our ever-changing live performances. This is not rehearsed theater; it is improv.

At this moment the world sits on the brink of what we are calling the AI Revolution. Recently I've heard several people in positions of power assert that AI is going to create a huge number of new jobs. But it seems to me it's going to bring new jobs in the same way that automation made life better for elevator operators; history has always shown us that if a new technology can of replace a person, it will. That leaves us with a question: Does reality and real, tangible things we can touch and feel have intrinsic value? Furthermore, is there intrinsic value in things that are made by hand and crafted by actual human beings? What about our experience is real and rooted in place and time?

Tied to this is the concept of perfection and what that really means. Do we value more the studio recording of a song that has been edited and polished and processed to remove any imperfection? Or is there value in live performance, where the idiosyncrasies and imperfections are what gives life to a performance, and where improvisation may show us something new about a song? What is the life that lives in the silences between the notes?

I believe in Organic Farming, and I avoid artificial ingredients in my food, and see them adulterations that are to be assiduously avoided. It seems to me that Organic Intelligence is something to be cultivated as well. What would that look like?

Orchard Kitchen is, by its very nature, an incredibly labor-intensive, bespoke effort. It has required a core group of talented people practicing Organic Intelligence: thinking about and meditating on this special place and how its limitations can become its strengths. I'm a firm believer in the idea that limitations are in fact strengths, or at least that they can be the things that lead us to understand our strengths. By limiting what we make here to things that are alive, ripe, and delicious at that specific moment in time, and by adding the things that we took the care to preserve, we shifts our consciousness from simply preparing food to telling a story about this place and this moment on this ball that is circling the sun. You cannot get the experience of Orchard Kitchen anywhere else, for any price; you must be here, right now.

I believe our home-grown OI is AI proof.

Writing in Winter

From Chef Vincent

— Orchard Kitchen —