A taste of farm-to-table at The Linkery

I’m a huge fan of the Good Food podcast on KCRW, and have been listening to it longer than I’ve been blogging. It was one of the podcasts that kept me company on the ride back and forth between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, and while my commute is much shorter here in California, I often turn it on when I dive into a major cooking extravaganza.

While I was in Iowa, the opening segment of the show used to torture me. It’s The Market Report with Laura Avery, who meanders about the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmer’s Market, talking to farmers about what’s in season and interviewing chefs about what they’re buying and cooking in their LA-area kitchens. In February in Iowa, listening to chefs bubble poetically about some of the early spring greens they’re seeing at market is akin to watching Terms of Endearment while suffering from PMS: You know it’s going to make you bawl, but you can’t help yourself.

But now that I’ve moved to the land of year-round farmer’s markets, The Market Report is just a sign of what’s coming soon to a market near me. Southern California is going to be seasonally ahead of Northern California at all times, since it’s warmer down there, but enough of that produce comes my way that the segment will no longer be torturous.

Recently, Laura interviewed Jay Porter, the owner of The Linkery in San Diego. He was talking about a dish he was serving at the restaurant: Simple grilled fish and okra, served on a bed of Anson Mills grits and topped with sliced peaches from John Tennerelli’s farm in Little Rock, CA. Just sliced peaches. The stone fruit, Porter said, was so good they needed absolutely no chef-ical intervention.

I had a business trip to San Diego over this past weekend, so I corralled a couple of co-workers to check out The Linkery with me. I scoped the website before hopping my southbound plane, and spotted this philosophic statement:

Our job is to find folks who employ the most wholesome possible means to grow and make the finest stuff in the world, and share it with our community. We aim to bring people closer to the production of their food and drink, both by incorporating local, regional and sustainably-grown ingredients, and by introducing folks to the people who make their meal, all while serving the most delicious stuff we can imagine.

Um, perfect restaurant for this California Foodie? Yes’m. And a perfect option for the Eat Local Challenge (The On-The-Road Version).

The restaurant itself sits on a corner in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood, and the space has roll-up garage-style doors that were open to the night air when we sat down to eat. When we had questions about the wine list, the waiter sent over the bartender to talk us through our choices. We settled on a spicy syrah from the Sierra Foothills after he briefed us on the up-and-comingness of that California wine region.

The waiter talked my co-worker Manel into the Sausage Tacos platter over the meatloaf that appeared on their Market Selections list of specials. “If you’re hungry, it’s more filling and substantial,” he said.

My co-worker Christine settled on the hand cut tagliatelle, with heirloom tomatoes, Grana Padano cheese and house-cured Hampshire pork belly, which was offered without the pork belly as a vegetarian option. We decided the non-pork belly option (sorry, vegetarians…) was really no option at all.

I settled on a pulled lamb barbeque sandwich with a zesty cucumber-and-red-onion salad on the side, and we split the artisan cheese platter (featuring selections from Australia, Holland and Rinconada, California) as a starter.

I only snagged a bite of dessert from Christine and Manel, who both went hard in a chocolate direction, but both bites were amazing. And while we ate, we could look up at pictures projected high on the wall of the farms where our food originated and the sustainably-raised animals that served as the sources of our meals.

If you’re in San Diego, check it out. The Linkery is on the corner of 30th Street and North Park Way in San Diego. Beer and wine only, but such an amazing selection of both that you won’t miss cocktails for a second.