For those of you who don’t know, my amazing husband Ron owns a neighborhood restaurant nestled in the beautiful community of South Park, San Diego called Alchemy Cultural Fare. Alchemy has a heart of gold and is very active in the community teaching cooking classes to children, bringing healthy lunch programs to schools and working with Seeds@City College Urban Farm to help cultivate the farmers of tomorrow. A national publication caught wind of what Alchemy has been up to and came out to do a story about The Greening of San Diego.

We took a field trip to Seeds@City College Urban Farm with the journalist, which is about 15 blocks from Alchemy, where Executive Chef Ricardo Heredia harvested ingredients to be used in that nights weekly 3-course Vegetarian Tasting Menu. Each week Chef Heredia and his team reach out to their network of local farms to find out what is fresh that day and create a unique menu for the night. Alchemy has been hosting their weekly Wednesday Vegetarian Tasting Menu since they opened back in 2009 and they haven’t repeated one yet!

Check out the tasty menu Ricardo cooked up from what he gathered that day…

King trumpet mushroom soup with truffle espuma.

Petite lettuce, english cucumber, early seasoned peach and gooseberry with green goddess dressing.

Quinoa croquette with lava bean puree and carrot caviar accompanied by braised garlic chard and corn bread with home-made chive butter.

If you’re in the neighborhood stop by for a bite and say hi!