Legume Bistro – Farm to table gem in Steel City

I was lucky enough to visit Pittsburgh recently and even luckier an old friend was available to meet for dinner.  She said I could pick the restaurant and I picked Legume since their menu mentioned some local farms – we were not disappointed. I was drawn in by this statement on their website:

“To provide customers with high quality food and gracious service in a warm, casual atmosphere at a good value that is, as much as we can know, sourced and produced in a way that nourishes the well-being of our community, as well as the lives of our employees, customers, and people we do business with.”

How could you not be?  And I loved this:

“We proudly source 100% of the pork, chicken, lamb and goat we serve from Western PA.  We occasionally  work with non-local meat and poultry items which aren’t commonly raised in Western PA, including antelope, goose, duck, veal, and pheasant.  Most of the beef we use is also from Western PA and we sometimes supplement with hormone-free antibiotic-free that is less local, as indicated on the menu. We receive deliveries of fresh seafood six days a week.”

They also change their menu daily and post it at 5pm every day.  The night we were there they had a Ribeye from Jubilee Hilltop Ranch (which my friend chose) and a Jamison Farms Lab Leg (which I chose).  Both were absolutely delicious.

I am going to let the words from the Jubilee Hilltop Ranch website describe their practices:

“The herds of grass-fed cattle raised at the Jubilee Hilltop Ranch produce only the finest all-natural angus beef. With carefully-chosen grasses for optimal nutrition, humane farming practices and rotational grazing in our pastures on the beautiful hillsides of southern Pennsylvania, we take the utmost care of our livestock. All of this preparation leads to a number of health, taste and environmental benefits that we pass along to our customers”

It looks like they do offer their beef to retail customers through a share but you will have to pick it up or call it get it shipped.  They are about a 2 hour drive east of Pittsburgh.

From the Jamison Farms website:

“The rolling Appalachian foothills are home to John & Sukey Jamison and their flock of sheep and lambs. There the sheep and lambs frolic and nibble on bluegrass, white clover, wild flowers and seasonal grass pastures with access to freechoice haybales throughout the winter months. Their 100% natural diet and free range lifestyle yield meat that is lean, firm, tender, delicate and pink, free of hormones, antibiotics, herbicides and insecticides.”

The website lists a bunch of different cuts for sale and also sausages, pie’s etc which can be shipped.  They are located in Latrobe, PA which is about an hour drive east of Pittsburgh.

A check of the menu today showed that they also listed the Jubilee Hilltop ranch ribeye on yesterday’s menu.  They also listed other meat dishes such as Grass-fed tartare, halibut, Scottish trout, Jamaican Pork stew and chicken under a skillet. Unfortunately they did not list the actual source of the proteins for these dishes.  We can assume that they are from local sources according to their website but would be good to list just like they listed the Jubilee Hilltop ranch ribeye.

Next door they have a more casual bar called Butterjoint that also served food.  On their menu they have pierogies (it is Pittsburgh), appetizers (beef tartare but doesn’t say grass fed) and burgers.  The meat from the burgers is from Thoma beef according to the menu today which is a meat market in Western PA.  Their website says that they source all their meat from local farmers and livestock auctions.  No mention of specific farms and I guess we can assume these are all pasture and humanely raised animals?

I love what they are doing at Legume needs to be more of it and the more transparency the better.

 

 

In memory of Fried Chicken Fine Dining in Indy

I have dreams about my mother’s fried chicken.  Some of my fondest childhood food memories are the smells and sounds of her cooking fried chicken and I couldn’t wait until a piece was cooked so that I could ‘test’ it for her.  Would always be a drumstick.  Just the thought is making my mouth salivate now.  I have eaten fried chicken everywhere I go and I have sought out places to satisfy my cravings.  I have eaten plenty of KFC, Popeyes and numerous other restaurants to experience that crunchy juicy goodness that I love.  Now to reality.  The fast food industry including KFC greatly contribute to the Factory Farm industry and there are numerous reports of them being the biggest offenders.  Just google ‘KFC factory farms’ and you will see headlines containing words and phrases such as ‘mutant chickens’, ‘animal cruelty’, ‘oppressive conditions’.  In fact most traditional large fast food chains are also guilty – it’s impossible to generate that much beef or chicken without using Factory Farms and their success is part of the reason that these farms exist.  Obviously, My New Meat Philosophy means no more fast food fried chicken.  I thought that in order to eat fried chicken again I would have to make it myself.  I was wrong.

One day I was in Indianapolis and had some time to go out to lunch.  I had been doing some research on restaurants that serve organic fried chicken since I didn’t want to give up one of my favorite dishes.  One that came up in Indianapolis was Crispy bird (see the article I found here).  The owner Martha Hoover has quite the resume (see article here) and has at least fourteen restaurants that I know of in the Indy area.  A common theme of all these restaurants is good quality ingredients from local farms.

All the chicken at Crispy Bird was a breed called American Freedom Ranger from Gunthorp Farm in Indiana.  They are humanely and naturally raised on pasture – as free range as it gets.  Walking into Crispy Bird you wondered if you were in the right place.  The interior looked like it was an upscale restaurant – framed photos of heritage breed chickens on the wall, white napkins and stainless steel cutlery, wine menu – not what you would  have expected from a fried chicken place.  The menu was also upscale – sides included braised sea island red peas, collard greens and egg yolk and mac and cheese cacio de pepe.   I ordered the leg and thigh main with the sides I just mentioned – and a glass of sauvignon blanc while I waited.

When the food came out the first thing I thought was that the presentation was amazing – the chicken was cooked perfectly – the peas were very tasty and the mac and cheese was a version that I hasn’t has before and well done.  The only problem was that when I finished I wanted more of the chicken- the portion was quite small – I could have eaten another 4-5 pieces but at $14 a pop didn’t make sense and everyone would have thought I was a glutton.  I left believing I had a unique fried chicken dining experience and I have had a lot of fried chicken dining experiences and most of the time I left feeling ill from eating too much.  I saw it as a fried chicken pilgrimage and reinforced my faith that if I look hard enough I can find the foods that I love which are cooked with ingredients that I believe in.

There is however a bit of a sad end to this story which you may have noted from the title.  I visited Crispy bird about 8 months before I posted this story and I found out today that it closed in Jan 2019 (see article here).   While I won’t be able to eat their fried American Freedom Ranger chicken again I am grateful to have been introduced to them and Gunthorp Farms and will keep an eye out for them both during my food search (apparently their biggest customer is Frontera grill).  And the spirit lives on through the Patachou group of restaurants who are doing amazing things with food.