The Rhododendron
While this feature usually highlights a single individual along with his/her most recent food-oriented publication, September’s focus is on an entire restaurant crew. This great crew collaborates to shorten the distance between field and fork by growing most of their own fresh ingredients as well as working closely with local producers of fresh foods of all shapes.
The Rhododendron opened its doors on April 4th, 1984 after a full year of renovation to a tired landmark café at a farmland junction, some 60 miles north of Seattle. The restaurant sits a few miles off the main highway on the beautiful scenic Chuckanut Drive. This two-lane by-way was the first in Washington State to be built exclusively as a scenic drive by Roosevelt’s CCC program of the 1930’s. The road winds along the rocky coast between the Historic District of Fairhaven, a Victorian hamlet just south of Bellingham, and then meanders through the peaceful farm community of Bow-Edison in the flatlands east of Padilla Bay. It cuts its way high above Samish Bay through coastal forests, clinging to the side of Chuckanut Mountain. Motorists should drive slowly, enjoy the views out over the water of the San Juan Islands, and plan to stop for a food break at one of the fine restaurants along the way. One of the best known of these eateries is The Rhododendron, a.k.a. The Rhody by loyal locals.
Don and Carol Shank and staff practice an approach to fine dining that focuses on harvests from their own gardens and greenhouse on the premises, as well as the seasonal bounty of local farm producers. The monthly menu reflects what is being produced by field staff members, Monika & Kirsten, who tend to the many herbs, vegetables and edible flowers being grown year-around in the working gardens just behind the restaurant. Partner Carol manages the day-to-day workings of the restaurant as well as maintaining an extensive wine collection to match husband Don’s seasonally-changing fare. Chef Don has cultivated a group of local suppliers who have also become patrons and friends over the years. He plans each month’s menu by responding to harvests in his own backyard as well as those of several small family farms and a few large commercial farming operations found throughout the prolific Skagit Valley.
This centuries-old floodplain of the Skagit River, one of the three main water sources of the Puget Sound, contains a soil rich in nutrients in a mild micro-climate that supports a plethora of crops eleven months of the year in this Northwest banana belt – apples, pears, blueberries, potatoes, cane raspberries, winter and summer root vegetables, rhubarb, horseradish, specialty squashes and lettuces. Oysters, clams, crab and salmon provide menu staples from the local waters of the San Juan Islands, plus nearby Samish and Padilla bays. The fertile grasses of the Skagit Valley grow a year-round supply of local meats. To emphasis this partnership with local producers, the back-side of the monthly-revised menu is dedicated to listing and thanking, by name and/or company, those who the restaurant enjoys a symbiotic dependence with to provide special local foodstuffs.
Working a month in advance, Don confers with his own staff and farm suppliers in planning both the regular menu as well as a unique monthly feature that presents the cuisine of a country in a different part of the world. Don takes advantage of the freshest local ingredients to develop original dishes and to replicate a distant culture’s fare using these same flavors d’jour. Changing the menu monthly captures the subtle crop transitions that occur through the phases within each of the four seasons.
One can take a lesson from this crop-calendar-sensitive chef whose approach to all cooking begins by first taking note of what’s coming out of the fields, orchards, barns and boats around him; he then bases each dish on what is most readily available from the seasonal production cycles in his immediate vicinity. While the rest of us may not have to plan a menu published for public consumption on a monthly basis, we could still mimic the approach by Don and his crew at The Rhododendron to ensure variety in diet and dishes. We all tend to get into those ruts of meal preparation without realizing it. By simply paying attention to the change of seasons, as reflected in the local retail produce department, one can avoid falling into the “if-it’s-meatloaf-then-it-must-be-Thursday” meal routine.
September brings on the last offerings from summer vegetable fields and the early-harvested fruits that announce the coming of fall. The small fingerling potatoes dug in late summer are now cured enough to use; new-crop pear varieties of Northern California/Southern Oregon and early Gala apples from NW orchards begin to appear in the markets; the field heat of August served to bring on the early summer plantings of beans, fresh corn and specialty potato crops as well as incubate a last collection of leafy lettuces. Use the colors provided by the bounty of each season to fill your plate!
