Melon growing in Olivia's Garden, Photo © Mike Sutter

The demand by diners that restaurants they patronize provide at least some locally sourced ingredients on their menus has inspired a handful of them, including Fonda San Miguel and Olivia, to grow food gardens on site.

Or, grow food year round offsite as Sagra Trattoria does in rented greenhouse space.

Food journalist and Field and Feast contributor, Mike Sutter – who curates the website Fed Man Walking — says he cares more about how a dish is prepared and how it tastes than knowing its provenance.

However, he humored me this week, by checking out the places mentioned above; we find out why they do it and what they do with it.

He told me, “The idea behind a Spaghettata is that you are supposed to be able to make the entire dish and set the table before the pasta is cooked. This recipe is a good way to practice your timing while cooking because there are very few ingredients.”

If Jeff and I hadn’t been crowding around him — me trying to record every sizzle and Jeff shooting great photographs — he could have had the dish completed in about 5 minutes. As it was — it took all of 10.

Roasted Tomato Spaghettata, Photo: Jeff Stockton

Roasted Tomato Spaghettata

Serves 2
Prep time 15 min

Ingredients

• 8  ripe tomatoes (paste style work best, Roma, San Marzano, Yellow Taxis, Orange banana etc.)
• 2  T    Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 T butter
• 2  cloves garlic
• 2 t fresh lemon thyme
• 4 oz dry pasta (6 to 8 oz fresh)
• kosher or sea salt and pepper to taste
• Parmigiano-Reggiano

Preparation

1. Start pot of salted water to cook the pasta. As the water is coming to a boil toss tomato’s with 1 T extra virgin olive oil(reserving remainder of oil for sauce).
2. Place the tomatoes in oven safe pan and cook tomatoes under high heat until skins blister and become easy to remove. Tomatoes can be cooked under broiler, on grill or even in toaster oven set to high.
3. Set the Table.
4. The pasta water should be boiling by now. Check pasta water for seasoning (should taste like soup).
5. Place pasta in water.
6. Heat remaining olive oil in pan being careful not to allow oil to get to hot.
7. Thinly slice garlic and add to the pan containing olive oil.
8. When the garlic becomes translucent, add butter, roasted tomatoes and fresh thyme.
9. Crush tomatoes until they reach the desired consistency.
10. Check sauce for seasoning.
11. Drain pasta reserving some of the pasta water if the sauce consistency needs to be adjusted.
12. Toss pasta and sauce together, garnish with Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Sagra Tomatoes

When somebody feeds you, it’s their way of saying you matter to them.  And if they feed you homegrown vine-ripened tomatoes, well, you matter a lot.

Diners are beginning to feel the love as more restaurants break ground to grow some of the herbs and vegetables they serve to patrons.

If these “fresh-minded” eateries don’t grow their own produce, then they’re sourcing it from local farmers, and that’s the next best thing.

I’m always on the lookout for places that take this path, and feel like I’ve unearthed hidden treasure when I find them.

When I discovered that Sagra Trattoria in Austin, Texas grows the majority of the tomatoes and herbs that Chef/Owner Gabriel Pellegrini uses in the rustic Italian dishes he prepares, I knew I had to visit.

In fact, Sagra Trattoria is the first restaurant I’ve come across since starting Field & Feast that has a greenhouse and an in-house horticulturist.

Mason Popp grows for Sagra and, using organic methods, he cultivates bushels of luscious heirloom tomatoes: from one-pound White Wonders to elongated and beautifully hued Orange Bananas to the cute, fuzzy and delicious Garden Peach tomatoes.

Mason also grows several kinds of basil and thyme and other aromatics year round– much to Chef Pellegrini’s (and diners’) delight.

But this is tomato season, and no matter what the weather is serving up in Central Texas, everything is copacetic in the Sagra greenhouse…and coming up tomatoes.

Chef Gabriel Pellegrini, Photo: Jeff Stockton

Chef Gabriel Pellegrini, Executive Chef and owner of Sagra Trattoria, was destined to make his living feeding people.

Inspired by his own family, Pellegrini remembers family dinners that were truly  family affairs, lasting sometimes up to six hours, and he wanted to bring that sense of togetherness to Austin.

As an avid family man, at Sagra Pellegrini has handcrafted many things with love from the mozzarella to the pizza crust to even the restaurant’s floorboards.

Pellegrini has been working in the culinary industry for more than 20 years, starting in 1990 as the Kitchen Manager at J. Christopher’s in Houston, TX.

Working his way up and moving to New York City, Pellegrini soon became the sous chef at Bowery Bar in the East Village in 1995.

In 1997, Pellegrini made the jump to executive chef and maintained that position over the next three years at notable New York restaurants including Prohibition and Sandoval.

Wanting to make the leap into restaurateur, Pellegrini became a partner in opening Urban America in 2000 and followed that by owning and opening Melissa Blue in Midtown and Villa Toscana in the Upper West Side. Serving as owner and executive chef of all three establishments, Pellegrini mastered the art of multi-tasking and also served as a consultant to 10 New York area restaurants. As a consultant he was responsible for all start up kitchen operations and was considered an opening specialist in the New York culinary world.

Missing the much calmer life of the south, Pellegrini shut the doors on his non-stop New York life and headed back to his home state of Texas to open Sagra where he is once again the executive chef and owner in charge of creating menus, selecting ingredients and making specials.

Taking a lot of well-deserved pride in Sagra, Pellegrini says, “The building of the restaurant was entirely a family affair. My wife and I did most of the construction ourselves. We want our customers to feel the love we put into this restaurant.”

Chef Pellegrini currently resides in Austin, TX with his wife Sarwat and their three children. With Sagra being such a family affair, customers often see little chefs in the making as the entire Pellegrini family works in the kitchen and visits with patrons in the restaurant, the family’s second home.

Cooking it Simple, Photo: Jeff Stockton

Cooking great food doesn’t have to be a complicated affair.

Gabriel Pellegrini, Executive Chef and owner of Sagra Trattoria in Austin, Texas says delicious, inspired cuisine doesn’t have to be overly complicated.  And he offers us a few tips as a guide to keeping it simple.

• Using the best ingredients really is very important in all cuisines but in Italian cuisine it is crucial.
• Most Italian recipes only contain a few ingredients, and the simplicity lets the flavors of the individual ingredients really shine through.
• Its also very important to season as you go. Every step in the recipe needs to have the proper amount of salt and pepper, the water used to cook the pasta needs to be seasoned, tomatoes in the sauce, everything! Don’t just add the seasoning at the end.
• We like to under cook our pasta slightly and then allow it to cook the rest of the way in the sauce.  This helps the pasta absorb the flavor of the sauce and also helps thicken the sauce.
• Tomatoes are a good addition to almost anything.  They add umami, which helps bring out the depth in flavor in the rest of the ingredients. With all the other flavors being enhanced, less salt in necessary.