You say potato.

It was an eventful week, in many respects, and I am glad to have reached Friday. Tuesday saw me back bussing the One World restaurant with a new student from the 3rd quarter rotating in for the week. It went well, and I have found it a good way to meet the other students and get a better lay of the land. Wednesday I was back in the 1st quarter kitchen. It felt like I had not been there in ages. Our team worked pretty well together and we were able to assist with other teams that were down people. At the end of prep, we do a practice of our knife skills, and Wednesday was tomato concassée, which is diced tomato after it is peeled and seeded. I have the basic principle down but really need practice on uniformity of small cuts. I think I will be make a lot of salsa over the next few weeks.

The highlight of the week occurred with our trip up to the Skagit valley to visit a couple of potato farms. Some background here, Washington State is the second largest producer of potatoes in the U.S. Additionally; the Skagit River valley area produces the largest amount of red potatoes in the U.S. as well. Our first stop was at the Double N potatoes where we were introduced to Jerry Nelson, son of the founder. After arriving at their packaging facility, Jerry explained the differences between growing potatoes in the Skagit Valley versus Eastern Washington. We then travelled over to their storage facility where the harvested potatoes are kept until it is time to ship them. It was interesting to see the process which was fairly straightforward. Potatoes arrive by truck from the fields, are gently unloaded and deposited into the warehouse via conveyor belt. From the storage facility it was off to the fields were we saw the potatoes being harvested and loaded into trucks.

The potato harvest generally starts in September and runs through early November for the think skinned potatoes like the reds and Yukon gold potatoes. Jerry explained the conditions for harvesting potatoes requires moist enough soil so as not to rip the skin from the potatoes. Additionally, the potatoes are defoliated 45 days prior to harvest in order to inhibit further growth in the potatoes and allow the skins to set, again mitigating any tearing.

After stopping for lunch and receiving potato literature, including a Spud-o-meter, from the Washington Potato Association, we then headed to the Puget Sound Potato farm processing facility were we saw how the potatoes were unloaded, rinsed, sorted and boxed. Neither farm is doing organic farming as it would consist of only about 40 acres of land, which is too small to make it worth the price. With that said, there are organic farmers in the area if there is demand from customers of the non-organic farms, they will purchase potatoes from the other farms. Both owners talked about how they need to rotate their crops, growing potatoes on the land 1 out of every 3 years. They both grow grass the other two years, where the Double N potatoes use the grass for feeding dairy cows.

With that, Friday arrived promptly with discussions on sustainability, ethics of food production and the need for the sacred in our meals. Interestingly, it was not hinged on subscription of any particular religion, but rather the idea of stopping and recognizing where our food comes from, all the animals, plants and people that were involved in bringing it forth. How do we say thank you for your sacrifice, for your contribution to all that we receiving, when half the time we are rushing around and eating in the car, at the fast food restaurant or between other obligations in this world. Call me old fashioned, but just bringing the family together to enjoy each other’s company, and talk about our day is one way to ritualize this in our home. We jumped from rituals and the sacred to a test in sanitation and safety, where we were quizzed on our favorite food borne-illness causing pathogens, including our favorites E.coli, Samonella and such. Then it was off to the dish-room/dish-pit where I was a stocker, responsible for collecting dirty dishes, pots, pans etc. I did a little of that, a little unloaded of the dishwasher (hot hands), loading of dishwasher and overall sweating (the heating/AC was busted in the dish room). It harkened back to freshmen college days doing the same thing for work study. The more things change the more they stay the same.