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Meghan Winkler
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Meghan Winkler
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Meghan Winkler
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Meghan Winkler
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Meghan Winkler
Grass-fed cows, chickens and pigs raised on pastures at Brunty Farms in Ashland are sent to the family’s Akron-area Farmer’s Rail butcher shops to become specialty meats and cuts. Those, along with extra animal cuts, are sent to the Bruntys’ new Pitchfork restaurant in Bath where executive chef Mary Clarke Morris goes to great lengths to cook as sustainably as the animals were raised.
“That’s part of my job, to incorporate things you typically wouldn’t sell in the butcher shops and try them here so almost nothing goes to waste from the animals,” says Morris, giving the example of fat that renders down with herbs into herbed tallow butter ($4) for steaks.
Her signature is creating demi-glaces in an intricate days-long process. She starts by roasting beef bones and onions, parsley and garlic scraps, and then boiling and reducing it overnight. Morris then strains, reduces and chills it and discards the fat that rises. She infuses the rest with pink, green and black peppercorns and bay leaves to create a peppercorn demi ($7). Add that to a two-inch, 18-ounce double-cut bone-in pork chop ($38) from Ashland that gets seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked over a flame and local cherrywood on the grill, leaving a char. Brighten it with street-style local corn ribs ($10), with cotija, cilantro and a house-made zesty sauce, and cleanse your palate with a white peach rosemary spritz ($12) from the in-house Eden bar.
“It’s a lot of flavor explosions,” Morris says. “You will taste that animal did eat grasses, the salt and pepper bringing that out, the cherrywood smoke, the meat resting and those juices dispersing, your different levels of that peppercorn sauce and corn.”
For the decadent French-inspired pappardelle bourguignon ($38), Morris reduces a dark red wine and cognac and adds a demi-glace and reduces it more. She adds New York prime filet, wild mushrooms from Alchemy Market Garden and fresh thick Ohio City pappardelle pasta and cooks it down and tops it with Brunty Farms maple bacon and fennel fronds. Pair it with Eden red blend ($9 glass), which has easy tannins and dark fruit notes that complement the sauce.
Starting in August, Pitchfork’s downstairs lounge opens with a chef’s table with views of the kitchen where you can see chefs cook from-the-Earth fare over a fire.
“It’s more small batch,” she says. “Doesn’t it feel good to eat something that’s foraged from around where you live?”
Corner Provisions, 1070 Ghent Road, Akron, visitcornerprovisions.com/pitchfork
: Summer Gazpacho :
Ingredients
Tomatoes
Seedless cucumbers
Red and yellow bell peppers
Vidalia or purple onions
Zucchini
Red wine vinegar
Kosher salt
Few cracks of pepper grinder
Instructions
Wash all vegetables, and put all ingredients in a blender or food processor. Puree to the thickness you want. If you want it thinner, add more tomatoes or some water. To bring the soup together more, add crostinis or crusty bread chunks.
Chill in the refrigerator until cold.
Serve in a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh herbs like basil and parsley. Enjoy it with crusty bread.
+ 3 Clean Eating Restaurants
Blue Door Cafe & Bakery / 1970 State Road, Cuyahoga Falls / bluedoorcafebakery.com
Darby’s on Fifty-Nine / 2764 Front St., Cuyahoga Falls / darbyson59.com
One Eleven Bistro / 2736 Medina Road, Unit 110, Medina / 111bistro.com
