SUPPER N^o. 7

24 MAY 2012

WELCOME

strawberry, mint + bubbles

SURF + TURF SAMPLER

chilled zucchini soup + georgia smoked trout roe

·         pickled beef tongue, bloomed mustard seeds, spring onion confit

baby beets + whipped lardo, green garlic
·        
SURF

old saltie oyster + portland maine dock diver scallop

spring onion, radish, moonshine mignonette

TURF

pork jowls + trotters, horseradish consommé, bok choy, red chard

SURF

crispy red hare lager soft shell crab, kohlrabi, quail egg yolk,

parking lot lemon basil vinaigrette, fried capers

TURF

cooke cattle brisket, spring onion + leek puree, shaved baby fennel,

radish gremolata, pistachio

FRUIT

season's first peach + blueberry cobbler, lemon thyme cream

as always, our meat & vegetables are raised on our own farms,
supplemented by the bounty of other local farms + fisherman

$38 per person, not including tax, gratuity & beverage

SURF + TURF

Supper No. 7

Thurs  May 24^th  8.30 pm

Farm Burger Decatur

We are happy to announce once again we're taking the burger out of Farm Burger. It’s our 7^th in a series of seasonal suppers where there is nary a burger in sight.  Summer is coming.  The pools are opening.  The kids are out of school.  Atlanta turns to Hotlanta.  The farmers try to get off the fields by noon.  A trip to the ocean beckons.  Inspired by those thoughts, Chef Terry and Dan have conjured up an East Coast surf and turf.  The  night will not be one of old school filet and lobster tail, but rather one of calling on our old seafaring friends to share in their catch.  Scallops from Casco Bay, Rappahannock oysters , soft shell crabs from the Georgia coast all intermingling with our own pasture-raised pork, grassfed beef and the latest local harvest from our family of farmers.  Throw in some cold beer and chilled rosé and you have what we think will be the perfect night to kick start the summer.

4 courses + more...
{$38 not including beverage, tax + grat }

Farm Burger Decatur 
RSVP by phone only
404.378.5077
Reservations begin Monday May 14th

Limited seating & we tend to fill up fast..call quick and catch the wave!

The No.1 Farm Burger Sliders   $2

Beef Cheek Sloppy Joe Sliders  $2

Quinoa Veggie Burger Sliders  $2

Beer Battered Onion Rings  $2

Rings n Fries $2

Fries $2

Sweet Potato Fries $2

Li’l Farmers   $2
{ kids meals }

Abita Draft Root Beer & Root Beer Floats  $2

Terrapin & Sweetwater Drafts  $2

Can o' Gennesee Cream Ale  $2 

On the morning of our birthday, we share our most important Farm Burger fun fact of year 2: our first fact this weekend was regarding the over 45 georgia farmers and artisans who have provided much of the food we serve at farm burger.  Our last fact is, that without the tireless, committed, visionary work of those folks and the support around them, farm burger would not exist. And here are just some of the names and places that contribute to this simple and true fact: jack mathews, george cooke, daniel dover, bobby britt, joe reynolds, will harris, rusty  & kyle, mary rigdon, laurie moore, tim dyer, duane marcus, judith winfrey, lauren carey, doug williams, andy byrd, wes and & charlotte, micheal schenck, alice & barb and the crew from Georgia Organics, tim & alice, amy & the army of crop mobbers, catherine lee and the city of decatur’s love of all things local, slow food atlanta, julie & peggy at emory, stephanie & oakhurst gardens. There are many many more, but everyday their work and support are part of the Farm Burger that we serve in our chicken wire basket.  And that’s a fact.

So today bring your friends, spread the word, enjoy some $2 sliders and more, we hope to see you all…

THANKS EVERYONE FOR A GREAT SECOND YEAR!

We want to celebrate and give back to our wonderful community and customers who have supported us the last 730 days.  It will be a day of giveaways, trivia and special deals  (we really liked the value menu from last year, hint hint maybe $2 deals all day). 

So follow our blog, tweets and facebook all this week where we'll be filling you in on the birthday special details and sharing some incredible FB facts, pay attention and maybe you will win some prizes.

Mark your calendars and we will see you Wednesday in Decatur!



Chefs Collaborative has was a formative organization in the development of Farm Burger. Their mission and principals are simple, and sound a lot like what we try to accomplish every day in our little neighborhood burger joint.

Mission:
Chefs Collaborative works with chefs and the greater food community to celebrate local foods and foster a more sustainable food supply. The Collaborative inspires action by translating information about our food into tools for making knowledgeable purchasing decisions. Through these actions, our members embrace seasonality, preserve diversity and traditional practices, and support local economies.

Statement of Principles:
1. Food is fundamental to life, nourishing us in body and soul. The preparation of food strengthens our connection to nature. And the sharing of food immeasurably enriches our sense of community.

2. Good food begins with unpolluted air, land, and water, environmentally sustainable farming and fishing, and humane animal husbandry.

3. Food choices that emphasize delicious, locally grown, seasonally fresh, and whole or minimally processed ingredients are good for us, for local farming communities, and for the planet.

4. Cultural and biological diversity are essential for the health of the earth and its inhabitants. Preserving and revitalizing sustainable food, fishing, and agricultural traditions strengthen that diversity.

5. By continually educating themselves about sustainable choices, chefs can serve as models to the culinary community and the general public through their purchases of seasonal, sustainable ingredients and their transformation of these ingredients into delicious food.

6. The greater culinary community can be a catalyst for positive change by creating a market for good food and helping preserve local farming and fishing communities.

Their vision:
As a result of our work, sustainable practices will be second nature for every chef in the United States.

In 1970 Earth Day grew from a simple idea with a staff of 85 to a global movement that today partners with over 5000 environmental groups in 184 countries, reaching hundreds of millions of people. But who would believe that the first Earth Day was founded by a Democratic Senator (Gaylord Perry D-Wisconsin) and a Republican Congressman (Pete McCloskey R-California). A clean earth, clean food and clean environment are ideas we can all stand for.

We are happy that we can give a little back this Wednesday. We hope all our fans and friends will join us for a burger or snack.

One of the central imperatives of the Farm Burger model has always been to offer our eater a superlative, 100% grassfed burger at a fair cost. Farm Burger's philosophy also calls for us to pay our local beef producers above commodity prices to honor the extra labor and higher expenses associated with pasture based management and our strict quality standards. Our producers and their efforts are the cornerstones of what makes Farm Burger “Farm Burger.”

In order to maintain these promises and principles, at this moment, we must raise our prices slightly. However, we vow not to pass all costs through to you, the heart of our operation, our customers. The base price of our $6 burger is now $6.50, however all of our blackboard burger prices remain the same. Our Lunch Combo has increased just a quarter to $8.25, and yet the Daily Combo is still $10. 

As always, we are committed to our mission, which includes offering as much value as possible in our menu while still strongly supporting the Georgia agricultural community with our actions and dollars.We will continue to bring a dedicated farm-AND-table experience to your neighborhood burger joint. Thanks for the support and please let us know if you have any questions.

         - The Farm Burger Team

MKT
SUPPER N^o.6
ALMOST SPRING
29 FEBRUARY 2012
 

SIPS
agua fresca para fiesta

GREENS, CHEESE + BEES
family style salad, ricotta bruschetta, local honey + honey comb

NEXT
oxtail + sweet potato fritters, horseradish, pickled onions

MIDDLE
decimal place goat cheese ravioli, early herbs, parmigiano

BIRDS, BONES + VEGGIES
pan-roasted georgia quail, bone marrow dirty rice, peachtree market farmers' veggies

ALL DONE
pecan sorghum tart, mascarpone, bard’s chaser 

As always, our meat & vegetables are raised on our own farms,
supplemented by our Peachtree Road Farmers Market friends

$39 per person, not including tax, gratuity & beverage
20% of proceeds to benefit our friends at Peachtree Road Farmers Market

MKT 
Supper No. 6
A prelude to spring
Benefiting our farmer friends at the Peachtree Road Market
Wednesday February 29 at 8pm
Farm Burger Buckhead

We are pleased to announce our next seasonal "Taking the Burger out of Farm Burger” feast, the 6th in our series of suppers for which we put our grassfed burgers back in the walk-in for a night.  Spring…we know it is coming, the occasional 70 degree days have piqued our interest and reminded us it is upon us.  Is it here yet?  When is the market opening?  Have our farmers started planting?  Can we harvest yet? The ground hog told us to wait 6 more weeks, and indeed the cool weather and rain has returned for a bit. But our chefs are itching to get going, as is our Peachtree Road Market Director, Lauren.  So Chefs Dan Latham and Terry Koval have decided to have a little benefit supper and start the picking early. Veggies will be from the market farmers as well as our own Athens' Full Moon Farms and Moonshine Meats, of course.  

We love what these suppers reveal about the agricultural richness of Georgia. There are always new products to try and new producers to support: pecans, honey and cheeses will mark their debut, and our friends at Darby farms even found us a guy raising some righteous quail.  And to get everyone in the spirit,  we'll host a mini-market in front of fB with the Peachtree Road farmers selling early-harvest crops from 6-8pm.

4 courses + more...
{ $39 not including beverage, tax & grat }

RSVP by phone only
404.816.0603
Reservations begin Monday February 20th
Limited seating & we fill up fast {as in a few hours} so hop to it!

Oh, how we hit the fall running. The last three months have kept us busy in the fields. A new Farm Burger in Buckhead, a new staff, a new chef: a whole new herd to manage, cultivate and tend to. Many days I sat down to write our blog and on many of those days I felt the first sting of writers block.

There was simply too much going on and too many topics to write about: our menu, our harvests, our new members to the Moonshine family, Halloween, Thanksgiving, a new chef in Athens.  Just too much. 

Finally, it was hosting our winter Supper No.5 on December 1^st  that help dislodge the block.  It was time for our chefs, Terry and Dan to take the burger out of Farm Burger (as our little motto for the suppers says) and collaborate on a multi-course dinner using the best fare from our farms and our friends' farms.  They choose a winter Italian theme  -- hence the Inverno title -- because farm-to-table doesn’t just mean southern cooking. They found Georgia rabbits, an orchard of persimmons carefully tended by an amazing couple, cauliflower and winter squash from our own Full Moon Farms, mustard greens from Bobby Britt just on the other side of Avondale Estates, pork cheek from pigs roaming the hills of Benji Anderson's farm near Athens, and grassfed beef cheeks from George Cooke’s cows who graze lush fields near Madison. 

In evaluating all these ingredients, I stopped and thought, "Wow, I love the south, what an awesome place. We are planning a dinner for  December 1^st, and look at all the great resources we still have!"  Then I paused again...did I really just say to myself "I love the south?"  I am a true northerner, with combined mid-western and northeastern roots. I have a great-great-great-grandfather that fought for the north in the civil war. Cousins, aunts and uncles, friends and colleagues are all in the north. I have lived in Atlanta for over six years now, and probably spent the first five planning my escape.  My constant complaint: too hot in the summer, not cold enough in the winter, a so-so dining scene, a subway that goes nowhere and takes you forever to get there, no ocean or lake nearby, and so many red states. Are old southern democrats like Sam Nunn, Howard Hefflin and Ernest Hollings just mythological creatures? This was a common wonder of mine. 

But now, now I have realized something has changed in me over the last year.  Now, all that was blocking my blogging seemed so obvious. At the start of our suppers I usually take a minute to make a quick speech and welcome everybody. It is my time to have a little pulpit and talk briefly about all the things food offers us in life.  Supper No. 1, I talked about how our menu was a way for our chef to express and celebrate the food that we raise on our farms. Supper No. 3 was the culmination of how spring begets new beginnings, and how small steps we take in our lives can make big change. At summer's Supper No. 4 we collectively expressed our love of family -- our family of chefs, farmers, customers, relatives, and our expanding family up in Buckhead. On this night, for Supper No. 5, I had it all figured out, it would be about all that I was feeling about the south.  I would talk about…appreciation.   

All my Yankee gripes were somehow washed away in planning this supper. My northern brethren had dug up their fields months ago and were hunkering down for the coming cold, while here we were in the great south, amply harvesting for a wintertime dinner. I started to look at all that was around me in the south, in Georgia, in Atlanta, and in my life.

I appreciate southern farmers who work this tough clay soil. I appreciate the farmers who tend lovingly to our pasture-raised animals against the pull of commodity methods. I appreciate our hot summers, our short winters, and our early springs (when I lived in New Hampshire spring was in July).  I appreciate that when my son was three he loved to ride on the Marta even if it took us 45 minutes to go from Inman Park to Decatur.  I appreciate the young and seasoned chefs and restaurateurs who work hard everyday to make Atlanta a better and better culinary town. I appreciate an ungodly hot summer day up at Lake Lanier on a pontoon boat with my family.  I even appreciate all the southern conservatives, as my pop is a pretty good one, although, I would greatly appreciate a resurgence of those old-timey southern democrats, if anyone's paying attention. And I appreciate more than ever my red-headed wife Annabelle (who from time to time has griped about the south with me), and all the support, patience and love that she has given me and our children throughout the years. 

So to all my old northern counterparts, I may or may not be coming back, for now there is so much to appreciate right here in the south.

There is a whole 2012 ahead of us to appreciate, and lots of field writing to do.  The writer’s block is broken, and I appreciate that too.

George

INVERNO

supper no. 5

dec 1. 2011

welcome

persimmon bellini

red basket crostini

ceci, eggplant,  pulled pig head

#1

zuppa - chicken sausage, leeks, mustard greens

#2

winter squash risotto

#3

beef cheek ragout, fullmoon cauliflower, foraged mushrooms, pine street crispy speck

#4

cast iron braised georgia rabbit, candied shallots, garlic, red mule grits

#5

strong bread with mascarpone  

$36 per person, not including tax, gratuity & beverage
as always, our meat & vegetables are raised on our own farms,
supplemented by the bounty of other local farms