Pitchin' In
Lynn Crawford is doing the unthinkable. After a 24-year career as a five-star, high profile chef, she is leaving her post as Executive Chef at the Four Seasons Hotel Manhattan for the ultimate gastronomic adventure.
Chicken
Chef Lynn loves a roast chicken—now she’s found heritage French birds that taste the way chicken used to taste. But raising them is hard and dirty work, and even requires Chef Lynn to sleep overnight with 5000 baby chicks.
Bison
Bison was once almost extinct. But a small group of ranchers have worked to bring them back and now bison is becoming a popular and healthier alternative to beef.
Avocado
Avocado is almost always served as an appetizer or used to enhance a dish. But Chef Lynn decides she wants to make it the star of a meal. Turns out the farmer she meets is a retired army officer and puts her through a serious avocado boot camp.
Cream
Chef Lynn loves to quote Julia Child, who used to say “If you don’t want to use butter use cream”. As far as Lynn is concerned, life would be empty without dairy fat, so she’s found an organic farmer in Minnesota who produces some of the finest.
Mussels
The clear and clean waters around Prince Edward Island are home to some of the best shellfish in the world, especially mussels. They are great just steamed in their own juices or with white wine.
Wild Boar
Wild Boar is the original pig thousands of years old, with a unique and rich flavor that’s now becoming a chef’s choice.
Crab
Chef Lynn will admit that she prefers Crab to any other seafood—including Lobster. So she’s thrilled to go out on the open waters off Vancouver Island to haul in trap after trap of the finest Dungeness crab in the world.
Potatoes
According to Chef Lynn, “a day without a potato is like a day without sunshine”. So she’s keen to get down and dirty to dig up a variety of heirloom potatoes in Alberta.
Pecans
The plumpest and richest pecans in the world can be found in north-central Texas, and it’s there that Chef Lynn finds a family farm that’s producing the tastiest nuts she’s ever had.
Catfish
When you think of fish and southern food, Catfish is the number one choice. The people who farm catfish are leading the way with aquaculture, but as Chef Lynn finds out, it’s a scary way to make a living!
Limes
Chef Lynn calls limes the underdog of the citrus family because they are relegated to very few dishes in North American cuisine. In the orchards she visits, many varieties of lime are grown, some she’s never tasted.
Squid
Everyone loves fried calamari, and if they don’t love it fried, they love it grilled. Chef Lynn wants to explore what more can be done with this universal treat—but she finds out the people who catch them live by their own set of rough and tumble rules.
