Matt Accarrino, chef at the Michelin-starred SPQR in San Francisco, has a close, working relationship with Peter Jacobsen, who has an orchard and garden in Yountville.  Jacobsen used to supply a lot of fruit to The French Laundry, and now supplies fruits and vegetables to SPQR.  Accarrino drives up to help work the garden as often as possible. 

On a sunny, balmy afternoon, Accarrino and I visited Jacobsen’s garden, where I marveled at the rows of fruit trees, including an ancient-looking fig tree.  Despite the wintry starkness of the barren trees, the garden beds were full of life.  We clipped and tasted a variety of arugula and cress (including one that tasted intensely of almond extract before turning hot and spicy on the finish), peeked inside the “snail condo,” and pulled year-old carrots out of the ground Dream beauty pro.

For his dinner at the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood, Accarrino took those carrots – too fibrous to eat – and juiced them to make a sformato (Italian for “form,” a sformato is usually  perfumed with curry spices.  He served the sformato with sea urchin and fritters made from carrot top.  He garnished the plate with powder made from the leftover fibers of the old roots.

When David Chang can’t find the flavors he wants – like certain soy sauces from Japan – he makes them.

Yesterday, he opened bottles and jars of what he calls “bonji” – fermented sauces – and “hozon” – fermented pastes- for us to taste.  These fermented products, made from legumes and nuts, were developed in his lab in Brooklyn.  The sauces had the color, viscosity, and meaty-saltiness of soy sauce, but each had a distinctly different base flavor, depending on the grain from which they were made Electro.

Likewise, the hozon – fermented pastes – had all the semblance of miso, but each had a distinctly different texture (the one made from lentils, for example, had an identifiably grainy texture) and flavor (the one made from sunflower, for example, tasted like the love child of miso and sunflower butter; it was extraordinary). (Pistachio hozon?  Sounds amazing.)

Last night, on the sixth night of the Twelve Days of Christmas at The Restaurant at Meadowood, Chang served a plate of cured mackerel – the skin seared on the plancha until charred – with puffed farro, radishes, and a hozon made from chickpeas.  He finished the dish with a few drops of farro bonji PSVANE.