Patowmack Farms

I've waited for three days for divine writing inspiration to alight upon my shoulders and give me words and phrases to describe the delight of Edenic perfection: eating in a greenhouse, munching on vegetables picked "up the driveway," and how indefatigably I was able to gush one-word superlatives to our waitress on how exquisite the food was. The words now and even at lunch at Patowmack Farms in Lovettsville, Virginia that day didn't arrive entirely coherently; but, rarely has this amateur food critic ever been able to say convincingly that sunlight played an active ingredient in the experience of food and lean on the quality of the photogenic dishes to compensate for her inability to quite capture near-culinary perfection.

Ok, that day, the bafflement might have been partly because my name was on the menu. Ok, nearly entirely. Once fellow diner Mike told me to look at the top of the menu, there was no turning back to the visible displays of delight at the breads, entrees, and even water-pouring that was to follow for my party, despite there being only one Lippmann present . I couldn't help but think that an amateur food critic made it big. For a day.

In between admiring the naturally-lit dining room--its clean lines, organic solemnity, and the waiters' reverence for its food made it like some sort of temple to the Pantheon of bounty and cornucopias--we were served warm pear bread with butter. It was simple and warm and the butter tasted like a mandorla of light. And salted cream.

Our first dish was small, candy-like-in-their-sweetness carrots, served in a jar resembling dirt, but was actually dehyrdrated, crumbled pound cake. Kerry and I, in unrestrained green-eagerness, ate the carrot tops because it just seemed like the right thing to do.

It was hard to realize the effect of semi-al fresco dining coupled with organic, just-feet-away farm grown ingredients until at a place like Patowmack Farms, which is so unapologetic, unpretentious, and honest in its menu and presentation. Oftentimes, the words green, organic, and sustainable are bandied as a sort of self-congratulatory compliment that's both gimmicky and alienating. But, from the moment we were greeted by the proprietor, Beverly, it seemed that the restaurant had bounty exuding from the surrounding fertile yard and the only solution was to share it with diners who made the 60-minute pilgrimage from DC.

Everything subsequently was superlative: Kerry ordered the butternut squash soup, suprisingly thick from the dredges of the tea cup, featuring both foam and mushroom powder. Andy ordered the Spanish ham with pickled beets. This is when my fellow diners first started laughing at my uncontrolled raptures.

Mike and I ordered appetizers that subsequently demanded we consider never eating again. Mike ordered the grilled pork belly with cheddar grits. The green leaves, with picture-perfect dew drops, mocked us both for the exhaustingly delicious brunches that lay below.

I ordered the soft cooked and fried egg with potato onion hash (featuring rich, carmelized and crisp potatoes), arugula (see above), and Virginia ham broth (it did me in and I had to implore both Saturn and Demeter for endurance to eat the next course).

As a palate cleanser (in spirit, not reality), we were offered a wheat ciabatta. The beauty of this ciabatta was that I was telling a story while it was delivered. While I'm not certain my story was particularly riveting, the waiter paused until the moment I naturally paused to explain to us what we were eating. This happened just as seamlessly each time we received a dish: each item was explained in detail at a time when interruption was welcomed and not intrusive.

Ah, Kerry and Andy. Kerry for lunch ordered the potato blitnz, boasting a mushroom puree, garlic confit, and braised greens. Andy had the pork shoulder with vibrantly orange carrots. Our food was both organic and technicolor. And both the blintzes, with their softended potatoes and veil-thin enrobement and the pork shoulder, tender yet composed enough to withstand coupling with vegetables, had perfect consistency.

Mike had the cinnamon apple French toast, with an apple puree, pistachio granola, and Virginia maple syrup. It was brioche-y and dense but carmelized on the outside, with a granola that shined in color and tempted with its non-Paleoness.

I ordered the Patowmack Hot Brown, almost certainly the most dignified soul food I've ever had. Atop a slice of toasted what bread and a bed of arugula was crisped-skin chicken adorned with rosemary, covered in pancetta (cooked mom-style, entirely crisped), and with a Spanish cheese sauce. It was like taking the best parts of a BLT, fettucine alfredo, and chicken salad and arraying them like a modern art sculpture.. on my plate.

Afterwards, our waitress proposed desserts: I had interrupted her 50 minutes earlier when we ordered appetizers and lunch that I wanted the peanut butter and chocolate. When she came back at dessert time, I observed that the menu featured four desserts and there were four of us.

So we each got dessert. And I think they may have been especially good because Mike high-fived Sarah, the pastry chef, beforehand.

Kerry ordered the boldest combination of flavors: the grapefruit shortcake, with a biscuit, grapefruit campari curd, almond cream, and glazed marcona almonds.

Andy ordered the cheese plate, which might as well have been three whole wheels as impossibly as we imagined it was to polish off. All the cheeses were domestic and were tangy bleus or meltingly-soft camemberts that made the honey and pear slices alike celebrate their luck at accompanying such flavorfulness.

Mike ordered the Grand Marnier souffle, which was photographed with stop action photography. Ok, it was photographed six times in a manner about as eagerly as I photographed the flamingoes at the zoo with my first camera.

I celebrated my love for the combination of peanut butter, banana and chocolate with short cylinders of devil's food cake, discs of peanut butter cream, heavily salted peanuts, banana ice cream, and a chocolate drizzle.

We toured the grounds, soaking in the pre-Spring vista:

The gazebo:

The chickens:

And the herbs:

And the source of all the bounty in the first place: