7. Farm to Table

How Our Restaurant Gets Its Food to Your Plate

A. J. Jacobs

The following piece appeared in the men’s magazine Esquire in March 2011.

In the spring, the asparagus is planted in a field just three hundred yards down the road. It is allowed to grow without interference from pesticide, fungicide, herbicide, cell-phone radiation, traffic noises, or human eye contact.

We wait.

At just the right time, the asparagus spear is gently handpicked by a well-compensated Latin American earth worker, but only after it has been subjected to Ericksonian hypnosis to minimize the pain.

A short bereavement service follows, incorporating Jewish, Christian, and Shinto textual elements, acknowledging the asparagus is sacrificing its life for our consumption.

The asparagus spear is transported directly and swiftly to the kitchen by an Ivy League–educated barefoot runner trained by Mexico’s Tarahumara tribe.

It is washed in the morning dew that gathers on the staff’s yurts.

The asparagus spear then rests in silence.

Our executive chef cooks the asparagus for thirty seconds by holding it ten feet from a fire of recycled cypress chips.

The asparagus is served to you, the diner, by hormone-free, locally grown waiters. Instead of plates, we use hardened clumps of dirt from the restaurant’s backyard, inspired by the ancient menarche ceremony of the local Chippewa tribe.

After the meal, it is customary for diners to walk to the asparagus field, squat, and fertilize the vegetables with their own organic matter, starting the whole beautiful process anew!