Before Chez Panisse, the food source options for chefs were processed, frozen, imported, or canned. The founder of Chez Panisse, Alice Waters, was truly visionary and an inspiration for Summer Jo's.

Alice's passion for fresh ingredients, harvested at the peak of their season, grown locally and organically, became the model for Summer Jo's. And while it is easy to get excited about the plethora of quality seafood, meats, game, wild mushrooms, and organic produce now more readily available, it is the pursuit of deliciousness that inspires us to leverage this bounty.

Ten years on, Summer Jo's is thankful that Alice's pioneering efforts have opened doors for small sustainable family farms, ecologically-gentle animal husbandry, environmentally-sensitive wildcrafters, and has given us all options to eat healthier in a earth-friendly way.

We are thrilled to be working with the Siskiyou Filmfest and kicking off their 2-day event (February 19th and 20th at the Rogue Community College) by presenting an exclusive screening of the documentary "Food Fight," which chronicles not only Alice Waters' efforts but also Wolfgang Puck's and Jeremiah Tower's fight against a food system that favors efficiency over flavor, health, and sustainability. The movie is free. Drinks, snacks, and libations will be available for purchase.

Summer Jo's, February 6th, 6:30PM, Free, exclusive screening of "Food Fight "(72 minutes) and also a short film called "Unlimited: Renewable Energy in the 21st Century" (24 minutes). Seating is limited. Please call 476-6882 for reservations.

Nancy

» Make reservations online
» Visit FoodFightTheDoc.com

We use to have the story of how Summer Jo's came to be on the website. It's gone now, and I'm not sure we should resurrect it, but it's the basic story: boy meets girl, they fall in love, they work on architecting their life and starting a family, only no family comes forth. Soooo, after a period of time of working in the publishing industry, our story is they come along and find a property that they fall in love with and name it Summer Jo's, after the daughter they might have had (the son woulda been named Adlai Joe, not Autumn Jo as some would guess).

Ten years hence, Summer Jo's still growing, but what an awesome family we have:

Chef Joy Cyr, originally a sous chef here, promoted within (how we love that — and how she's risen to the challenge). To be a top-notch chef without a lot of staff requires a lot of brain-power and ultra organizing. She's got it and the talent
to sweep our customers off their feet.

Farm Manager Matthew Molyneaux: So knowledgeable he's gone on to become an organic farm certifier while working at Summer Jo's part-time.

Wine Director and Front of House Manager Thomas King spends all of his spare time researching the most-sought-after wines, which means Summer Jo's has been honored annually to be among the best restaurants in the world for wine lovers.

Sous Chef Tracy Allen: Hometime boy (grew up here) went to big city (Seattle) where he worked in fancy-pancy restaurants.

Landscaper / Handyman / Livestockherder / Candoanything Samuel Custodio: whatever we ask, he can do, and beautifully.

Farm/Greenhouse Manager Marggy Wheeler: Formerly of Pacific Botanicals, she has graced our lands with her talents for nine years.

Baker Amber Birmingham spent a coupla days with Chester Smigielski ( who still fills in when needed, decided to retire his full-time baking hands): Picked it up in no time flat, churning out bread and parbaked pizza loaves to much acclaim.

Andy Getz, newest on board: culinary school grad: taking the pressure-cooker environment in his stride. And then there's the wait staff, the people who take care of you, and some other folks behind the scenes... but that's another blog.

-Nancy

Hi, Kim,

A friend forwarded this picture of Sophie Jo. It's a cute one so I thought you might like to have it.

Sophie Jo is getting bigger every day. She is in finishing school still, that is, her trainers come twice a week in exchange for lunch and she is learning so much. She can sit, shake, spin, get down, jump onto chairs, go through tunnels, jump through hoops. Mostly she loves to play with their dogs: that's her favorite part.

We got to take her to the river several times this summer so she's mastered swimming as well.

Everyone asks where we got her; we recommend you quite a lot.

Hope all is happy and well in labradoodle heaven.

Sincerely,

Nancy

I recently got an opportunity to attend a cheese-making class at Pholia Farm in Wimer. Pholia Farm is a small goat dairy, owned and operated by the Caldwells, who in my opinion are some of the nicest people I’ve had the pleasure to meet. They are always warm and welcoming. They are amazingly supportive of others endeavoring into making cheese commercially in the region and enjoy sharing their knowledge and experience with everyone.

In this particular class Gianaclis was showing us how to make a Tomme- and Cheddar-style cheese. She fully equipped us with morning coffee (which I was in major need of and appreciated beyond words), a binder with recipes, which touched on the importance of ph and acid development for texture, the effect that the amount of calcium leaving the curd into the whey has on yield and texture, what different cultures do, how to cut the curd, how to press them, and the list goes on.

All and all it was definitely educational and proved to me that I was always wrong when I said in high school that I would never have any use for chemistry when I got older. In addition to the class we tasted a Daisy Creek Rose and Twilight Ale from Deschutes Brewery with Pholia’s Elk Mt. and Hillis Peak. We were also served lunch that consisted of a variety of flavored Chevre they had made the day before, including a chocolate and a lemon-almond chevre paired with chocolate graham crackers and ginger snaps. Yummee!

We also had heirloom tomatoes and cantaloupe from their garden, organic raspberries, figs, sliced baguette, salami, and more cheese. I shared this class with 6 others, who I’m pretty sure are all experienced cheese-makers. These people definitely made a road trip to be there at 9 AM. People came from Eugene and as far as Palo Alto, California. That just verified to me how respected Pholia Farm is for the fantastic artisan cheese they make and their overall knowledge about small dairy farmstead operations.

I consider myself especially lucky because I live within a 15-minute drive and get to visit them at the farm often or I just drive 5 minutes from my home to the Sunday Farmer’s Market in Rogue River, located at the Umpqua Bank parking lot, to buy their cheese, fudge (which is wicked yummy), or their luscious goat milk soap. They primarily sell to a small handful of cheese shops across the country and because they are a small production dairy there have been some places that have gladly waited 3 years for their award-winning Elk Mt.

Regardless of awards, every thing they make is heavenly to me.

So if you’re ever in the neighborhood of Wimer in the Rogue Valley make it a point to visit them. But, if you do they are only open Mondays 9-noon and the 2nd Saturday of every month 11-2 . You’ll not only enjoy tasting their cheese, you can also watch it being made. Buy some Evans Creek Greek, goat cheese fudge, or soap that they somehow find time to add to the repertoire and only offer at the farm.

Daughter Amelia gives a great tour of the barn, takes you on a walk with the goats, and knows the name of every Nigerian dwarf there. In addition she’s quite the rooster tamer and active 4H member.

- Joy

In the first week of September, the whole staff took off for three days at Lake of the Woods. It's our annual Summer Jo retreat where we let our hair down. We did that, and swam, hiked, biked, played music, cooked over the grill, told jokes around the campfire, and ate s'mores. Jennie, Andy, Justin, Thomas, and Amber's dad Patrick Dodd all played guitar and Ajax brought his hand-made didgeridoo, which Shelley managed to coax some sound out of. It was also Sophie's first camping trip and she took to it like an old camper.

We were eager to introduce Sophie to the water. But where? The Rogue and the Illinois will one day be in her sphere, but for now they are too scary and too dangerous for a puppy. We know she'll love going to the beach, too, one day. Wading boldly into the shallows and running from the advancing surf, fetching sticks, swimming till she's exhausted. But not now.

In the end, the decision was obvious. We strapped her into the back seat of the truck and headed for Lake Selmac.

We've been learning about Sophie's personality in the weeks since she arrived. She likes to stop and smell the roses, literally. And the poppies. And the lavender. And the irises, when she can reach one.

She finds all the herbs on Summer Jo's farm endlessly smellworthy, too. And she's fascinated with birds. She can sit and watch birds for hours at a time. OK, not hours, but for several seconds at a time. I mean, she is a puppy.

Here at the lake, she decides to study the situation. That looks like a lot of water. Up to now her experience of bodies of water has consisted of an ill-considered pounce into the fish pond in the herb garden. She wants to think about this lake thing for a while.

This being a Monday afternoon, we don't have much company at the lake, but after a while a family shows up. When the two little kids go in the water, Sophie is fascinated. Especially when the boy starts rowing an inflatable boat around the near shore.

Eventually we get her in the water. She actually swims for the first time. As she tries to wade to us, we step back and to her it seems like it's sink or swim. She seems to like it.

When she gets out, we're both a little shocked. Our fluffy ball of doggie precociousness has turned into a drowned rat. Most of her bulk, it is now painfully obvious, is fur. Underneath she seems to be some species of scrawny rodent. Still adorable, but a rodent nevertheless. We decide not to memorialize the moment with a picture. We'll preserve her dignity.

Birds. We're as fascinated by these birds as she is. Is there anything more graceful than a swan?

Eventually she dries out, settles down, and finds something to chew on. Nancy and I finish our sandwiches, sip our wine, soak up the sun and breeze and soothing sounds of the lake on a lazy Monday afternoon.
Sophie sleeps all the way home.

-Mike