Last year I was working as a chef in Seattle making good money and loving it! I have always had a passion for food. Ive been cooking in Seattle for nine years. I've cooked Spanish, Italian, Mediterranean, pub fare, and American diner food. My passion for knowledge of all things edible drives me daily. As I really began to try and figure out what defined me as a chef, an idea started to grow inside me. This idea was that I was only able to control the quality of the food that I was serving as soon as it came into the kitchen. But what happened to it before it was passed on to me in perfectly trimmed, cryovac packaged little packets. Of course as a chef I always look for the best product available, the best produce, the best meats from farms that I trust. But that wasn't enough for me. I began to think, what if I could have my hands on this product from the time it was born or grown` to the very moment it lands on the plate. Well this idea consumed me, it was a blossoming romance. But the practical implications of this idea were a little too big to wrap my head around for a long time. It meant that if I wanted to pursue this idea I would have to rearrange my entire life! I would have to give up everything I had worked so hard to achieve. To make the transition from chef to farmer, master that, then integrate the two in order to create the true farm to table experience. Well this would take some real commitment not only from me, but my wife Colleen and newborn daughter Avalon, and that would take a lot of convincing! So we talked....a lot! We talked about leaving our house in the city, away from all of our friends, leaving my chef position, and packing it out to the country. After a while Colleen started to come around to the idea and finally agreed to following me on this new journey. Fast forward to now. We have taken up residence in the house that I grew up in out in Arlington. It's a five acre plot of land that used to supply food for my family when I was younger. After my dad passed away, my mother couldn't keep up with the farm chores and disbanded our livestock. So here we are at Swiney Pines family hog farm. We started out with three pigs that I raised and sold to some chef friends of mine. We now have our first sow and have a small herd. The end result of this process will be the culmination of what I've learned about food and farming put together to wind up on a plate in the dining room of our (future) restaurant.
