Why Kobe goes to Los Gatos

In an interview (Sabato, 13 June), young chef Kobe Desramaults from In de Wulf announced that he will be spending a month in restaurant Manresa of chef David Kinch, who is based in Los Gatos and who won "Best Chef Pacific 2010" from the James Beard Foundation.

Why does this young Belgian chef plan this internship? Most likely to broaden his command in the challenge of using whatever local surroundings yield in food, and to resort less to the automatic pilot that chefs ignite when buying their produce at Rungis.

Nothing wrong with Rungis - food mecca second to none, but chefs like Kobe Desramaults, in the wake of René Redzepi of Copenhagen's Noma, who have seen every new device under the stars, really want to work with impediments. They really are the new hunters and gatherers. And that's why Kobe goes to Los Gatos.

For this is what I imagine chef Kinch does: he visits the Love Apple Farm, his royal purveyor, a place where in another life I'd work, or in another life I'd try to recreate, and gathers the yield of the day for his kitchen.

Now here's what baffled me as well. Desramaults isn't using tomatoes until July. He has a Tomato Criterion.

Unlike last year, this winter I have continued eating tomatoes, solely on account of an extremely local producer (7 km) churning out baskets of cherry tomatoes out of his greenhouse. And in the past weeks, I've been eating this bounty from Holland (or the US?):
In short, conditions were such that I succumbed. Because organic seems to defy any season. Because organic goes colorful. I prepared this quick salad in a state of bewilderment, because it suddenly felt like cheating.

Green tomato salad

Green tomatoes (or if you have them, tomatillos)
1 avocado in its prime
cold cooked chicken breast
fresh tarragon leaves
olive oil
dash of lemon juice (optional)
generous sprinkling of sesame seeds
pepper (salt optional)

Lightly heat the oil over low heat and suffuse with fresh tarragon leaves. Pour leaves and oil over the ingredients, combine everything, serve.

Now start ruminating the Tomato Criterion.