Rhubarb, other local ingredients elevate Palmer restaurant

As part of its focus on local ingredients, one local restaurant has added foragers to its list of vendors who supply the ingredients for its unique menu. In its second year of operation, Feather and Flour in Palmer takes farm-to-table cuisine to even greater heights. Among the list on its wall of more than two dozen farms and seafood operations that bring fresh food to restaurant is a single entry for “local foragers”.

For the last two springs, Feather and Flour owners Luke Hyce and Heather Greenwood have put out a call to residents for backyard staples like rhubarb, raspberries, and ferns. Later in the summer, local foragers will be asked to bring blueberries, crabapples, Sitka spruce tips, and rosehips. Menu items are tailored to what’s available, but the end result is always a comprehensive fjord-, forest-, and farm-to-table dining experience unlike customers can get anywhere else locally.

“Local foods are higher quality,” Hyce said. “We also want to support our local economy.”

With so much high-quality farmland in the area, Hyce said encouraging local farmers is also important.

“It’s a lifestyle we want to support,” he said. “We don’t want all land to turn into subdivisions.”

This time of year, supporting foragers means rhubarb, and lots of it. A cool-weather perennial that thrives in the northern states, rhubarb grows most vigorously in early spring, before the weather becomes too warm, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Institute of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Extension. So it is one of the first crops ready for eating. High in vitamins A and C, rhubarb is also a source of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, potassium and phosphorus. And for foodies awash in it this time of year, it is a blank culinary canvas, waiting to be turned into something delicious on the plate.

Hyce said there are about 15 steady suppliers of rhubarb, each of whom brought in 10 to 20 pounds of the plentiful plant. “With how much we just got, we’ll be putting it into everything,” he said.

Jams and compotes are obvious creations that can accent a variety of main dishes. Hyce also floated the idea of a rhubarb teriyaki sauce as part of a future dinner entrée. For now, though, Feather and Flour has put rhubarb to work in its rhubarb lemon drop cocktail, as well as in a strawberry-rhubarb sundae on its dessert menu.

Sous Chef Meagan Binkley explained the process of poaching rhubarb in vermouth and vanilla, then adding spices, to create the sauce that is the base for the sundae. It is served over house-made strawberry buttermilk ice cream and topped with macerated strawberries.

“I just love rhubarb,” she said. “It pairs well with warm spices like cardamom and cinnamon.” Upcoming menu offerings will include rhubarb French toast for Sunday brunches. A rhubarb-based crumble-style dessert (recipe elsewhere on this page), is also likely. With rhubarb, options are limited only by imagination.

“It’s just so cool to be in Alaska,” Binkley said. “It’s a really creative time of year.”