only in california.

Memo.

To: All staff.

From: Traci Des Jardins

Re: New Position: Forager

I want to introduce a new position and person to the Jardiniere team. Shuna Lydon will be starting work with us beginning 5/16. [SL] will be working with [our purchasing manager] and [the chef de cuisine] to bring more farm direct products to use at Jardiniere. [SL] will be focusing on introducing our staff to the restaurant / farmer relationship and to educate our team about the farms in our area who provide us with our beautiful produce....

Although much of [Shuna's] kitchen time has been focused on pastry, [SL] has a broad knowledge of all things kitchen. [SL] has developed great relationships with our farmers and cheese makers in the area and will help us to further our goal at Jardiniere of using local and sustainable products. We welcome [SL] to our team and look forward to learning all that [Shuna] has to share.

[ IN BOLD IS MY FAVORITE SENTENCE.]               

[ THIS IS MY NEW PART TIME JOB.    SFL ]

Comments

[jen]

!!!

This is so cool.

[Jeanne]

Shuna Shuna Shuna--
Is this a real job? Are you working for Larry?

[molly]

Wahoo!!!

That's like getting the most prefectest job ever!

Like:

New Position: Eat Your Favorite Food and Sit on the Beach in Maui

[Amy]

You got a job for being a broad? Nah, I must have read that wrong. All things kitchen--sounds like a great tagline for a blog or maybe your business card. Nice work if you can get it--congrats!

[Fatemeh]

Yay! I'm so glad this is public! I've been holding my tongue for WEEKS!!!

Let me tell you again how freaking stoked I am for you.

xoxo
F (aka, "child of the '80s'... STOKED???)

[shuna]

Jeanne--- no, I am working for the kitchen--R.L. and T.D.J. Larry is at Nextcourse FT now.

Molly--- I am so glad that perfectest is considered a word by you too :} But I will say that it is not really like getting a job sitting on the beach, in Hawaii. Maybe traipsing over all the islands meeting the farmers and fisherpeople and tasting all the indigenous foods.

Amy---- Yes!! What a great idea! Thank you. Maybe Tshirts....

It's definately a job designed for me and really amazing. I've actually done this job for the last 3 1/2 jobs I've had, but never with a title.
We have to give it up for chefs who can provide for such a service and position. And who think that this sort of thing is work. It's constant upkeep, as we know, to stay on top of where a restaurant (and person) acquires their products.

[shuna]

Fatemeh--- Yo girl, you hella cool.

[John]

Mazel tov!

As a contribution, do you know the farm near Petaluma where you can buy (among other things) fresh--never been frozen--geese, goats (milk or meat), little bitty fetal-looking suckling pigs (about 13 pounds cleaned and oven ready) and other neat stuff? And the woman who runs it is terrific, too. (When a customer asked her how to prepare the guinea fowl, she deadpanned, "Well, back home in Oklahoma, Momma fried everthang.") Here's the info:

125 Lynch Road

707-763-4793

Directions: 101 to Petaluma E. Washington/Washington exit R on Washington about 3 miles to dead end at Adobe Left to Lynch (3rd R) 125 is 2nd house on L (ignore strange numbering) gray A frame across from horse ranch

[drbiggles]

Hey Shuna,

She shoots, she scores. Congratulations! Sounds as though they're really happy to have you onboard. An inspiring job with people who want you around. I can hardly wait to see how things go!

Tootles

[Melissa]

Forager!! You are right, only in California!
Congrats!
Best Wishes,
Melissa

[Sam]

Well you know I already squealed with excitement when you told me this news after the custard class a couple of weeks ago. I am so happy I can now brag about my friend's great new job publicly.
That really is a dream job of a food blogger.
Jardiniere is lucky to have found you.

woo hoo!
Sam (officially a good food forager since May 2004;)

[Kudzu]

I've always sworn that any job in any restaurant is far too stressful for the likes of me -- and here you managed to create one I would absolutely love. What an amazing gift! You're just the person for the task. Keep the blog going; your journaling this way could lead to a first-ever book on a new place in the field (no pun intended).

[shuna]

I'm not sure that there's a stress-less restaurant job out there. It might just be the nature of the industry.

Thanks everyone for being so amazingly supportive!!

[haddock]

Glad this is out in the open now. I think you're trying to see how much of your kitchen time can be spent on one SF block.

I hope you're able to help the kitchen further see the relationship between what they do and what they use to do it. The poor bookkeeper though. The number of checks this person will have to cut has now increased to the nth power.

As to the title of the post, it's really not only in California, but more like only at Jardiniere. There seems to be an awful lot of money floating around the place.

Best of luck!

[shuna]

Haddock,

Because I have met you I think I understand that this comment comes from a good place but I need to address it so that no other readers are mislead.

On some level it is true that Jardiniere might have more money to spend on this sort of position, but so do many other restaurants who will not and have not made the sort of pro-active decisions that TDJ has. To my knowledge Chez Panisse was the first restaurant to put a title and a person to task with this title. Like I've said, I have done this sort of thing in many of my jobs without having the official title. As have many chefs who are disappointed day after day being told by their produce purveyor that the best ----- fill in the blank could not be procured when it was the height of that -----'s season!

Traci Des Jardins designed this position around my skill set. THAT is what I have to be grateful for. That someone as amazing as her could reign in many of my talents and put them to use. The hope is that that kitchen will benefit from my foraging, but it is not a guarantee. It takes more than one person to have a relationship!

In the end I am just happy to further the relationships with farmers (cheese makers, bee keepers, etc.) and farmer's markets I have worked for so many years on, so that I can continue to support them and pass on my excitement and inspiration.

[john]

I can confirm that other restaurants try to do something similar. We often run into Loretta Keller, owner-chef of Bizou, at the Ferry Building farmer's market, shopping for the menu, not for her home kitchen.

[haddock]

Sorry if the comment sounded flip. It wasn't meant that way at all. It was more from a place of awe (or perhaps envy), as in, I wish I had the money to have a dedicated pastry kitchen or to be able to pay someone to find great stuff for me to play with.

TDJ has long been a leader on a multitude of fronts that affect our industry from recycling/composting to sustainable agriculture and animal husbandry and she certainly deserves success. As do you.

As the Shakers used to say, More love

[pim]

wow wow wow

sitting here in my sleepy bed with my sleepy head on sunday morning in London, trying to catch up with all things new and old in all my friends' blogs --it's so good to have dsl in bed again, one of the things i missed so much while in paris-- and look what i found!

a super big congratulations to you. what a fun job. we must have a huge party when I am back in town. woohoo!

kissy kiss
pim

[Dan Leff]

Hi Shuna -

Nice orange juice poem.

What does a Forager do (at Jardiniere or in general)?

Dan Leff

[shuna fish lydon]

Hello Dan Leff,

So nice to get a nice message from you.
Foragers are people who go out of the restaurant finding unique product for the kitchen and establishment. In the case of Jardiniere (and also Chez Panisse where the tradition started, to my knowledge), the forager looks for local seasonal, (organic, sustainable etc.) produce at the peak of it's season. Although we in the Bay Area have incredible farmer's markets and even some great produce wholesalers, few chefs have or make the time to access these gorgeous resources. It's hard work keeping up with our rich agricultural region and a forager would be the person with the energy and ability to be out in the field sourcing.
Although I am no longer at Jardiniere, it was an opportunity to use what skills I have honed by making a lot of time to have relationships with farmers, farms and many bay area farmer's markets. I appear to know more about produce than most people I work with and it was exciting to introduce cooks and chefs to what excited me.

[Joy]

Yay for Shuna! I'm SO excited for you. And since it is only a few blocks (OK, maybe like 7 or 8) from my house, I am going to go taste the fruits of your labor SOON!

Congratulations!

Joy

[Joy]

Also, I don't know how it took me this long to find this post:)!

[Shuna]

Joy,

I am sorry to break the news to you but this job at Jardiniere is for me no longer. It appears that the chef thought my added position meant that "he was not doing his job" and proceeded to make me not wanted. Funny because SO many chefs, when they heard about this position, expressed that they would LOVE to have the money to be able to afford an extra position such as this one and they were really jealous of the chef at Jardiniere.

I departed gracefully and wish them well.

thanks for looking into past emails, I am sorry to have to break the news.