BOOM BOXES

Huron-based Chef’s Garden has new veggie-packed delivery option for consumers

I’ve been eating it all my life, but I didn’t even recognize the spinach when I pulled it from my Immunity Booster box sent to me by the Jones family’s Chef’s Garden.

But once I’d cooked it for dinner, I couldn’t believe its buttery-rich, crunchy, almost-nutty flavor — unlike any spinach I’d eaten in the past.

The Huron-based Chef’s Garden, which for 30 years has been providing the world’s top chefs with microgreens and specialty vegetables, is ramping up its service to deliver to consumers. To that end, it’s providing writers like me with sample boxes of what they are making available. Each box is somewhat different, composed of greens and veggies harvested the day they were packed and shipped.

Turns out I’d gotten a sample of its ice spinach in my Immunity box. Begun in the open air, the spinach crop was covered with a cold frame as winter set in. As the spinach was exposed to cooler temperatures, it drew more nutrients up from the soil through its roots and into its leaves, increasing its sugar levels and flavors. That’s what I was tasting. It’s the healthy soil that is key, said Bob Jones Jr., who works closely with brother Lee and father Bob Jones Sr. at The Chef’s Garden.

“Our goal isn’t to grow the variety with the highest yield,” said farmer Lee Jones. “It’s to find the most flavorful and nutritious product available.”

Dr. Bob DeMaria, who helped the Jones family develop the boxes of vegetables for consumers it’s now marketing, agreed that the spinach is the best he ever tasted.

“Their round carrots have three times the antioxidants of other foods, and their radishes are excellent in the support of liver and gallbladder function,” he said. Chef’s Garden microgreens in my box included pea tendrils, mini sage, micro Chinese cabbage and other baby greens, all densely flavored.

DeMaria suggests sauteing them with Shiitake mushrooms in a little olive oil.

“What soil needs to be healthy is a lot like what we as humans need,” Bob

Jones Jr. said. “After all, soil is also a living, breathing organism, and it deserves to be treated that way. It needs food, air and water to be able to be productive. And you’ve got to give it rest. The same things we need.”

One key component is the use of cover crops, which aren’t grown for the purposes of human or animal consumption. These are crops specifically and strategically grown to enrich soil, to feed and protect it.

“I’ve been to the farm and visited their research lab,” DeMaria said.

No pesticides or herbicides are used, and the soil is super-healthy, he said. The Chef’s Garden lets weeds sprout and then burns them off before crops are planted, he said. The company even researches the water it uses to ensure it’s the best.

DeMaria has practiced medicine since 1978, specializing in drugless therapies for those with chronic health issues. He practices in Naples, Florida, while his son and daughter-inlaw, both doctors themselves, handle the family’s Westlake-based practice in Northeast Ohio.

With restaurants on hiatus, Jones wants everyone to know fresh vegetables are available for delivery. People don’t even have to leave home.

The Chef’s Garden’s customized boxes include Immunity Booster, Best of the Season, Anti-Aging, Detoxification

JANET PODOLAK — THE NEWS-HERALD Ice spinach, at right, is shown next to garlic scapes and baby parsnips, along with microgreens, round carrots and radishes — all part of the Immunity Booster box from Chef’s Garden.

JANET PODOLAK — THE NEWS-HERALD An assortment of radishes is on a bed of microgreens next to round carrots, which have three times the antioxidants of other vegetables. For more information and ordering, visit chefs-garden. com.