♪ ♪ >> From the editors of Relish.com, we bring you Moveable Feast, with host Alex Thomopoulos.

>> ALEX THOMOPOULOS: We're on our way to Boston today with one seemingly simple goal in mind: marry incredible local ingredients with the city's undeniable passion for creating truly epic feasts.

To help us find the best of what Boston has to offer we'll be joined by James Beard Award-winning chef Karen Akunowicz and chef Douglas Williams, who's worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in both New York and Paris.

So Chef Karen is a bit of a pasta guru and we're headed to One Mighty Mill to source the secret to her award-winning pastas-- fresh, locally milled wheat.

>> I think we're used to this ingredient that has no soul and no life, and we don't have a connection to it.

>> ALEX: Then Chef Douglas is taking us to Gibbet Hill, 80 acres of rolling hills and conservation land.

Are you kidding me?

>> This is amazing.

>> ALEX: This is place is incredible.

It's gonna be a picture-perfect backdrop for our feast.

And not only that, we're gonna harvest an abundance of fresh produce.

Handmade pasta, duck with cherries, and a farm to fork dessert.

I hope you're hungry because it's all happening right now on Moveable Feast with Relish.

♪ ♪ >> Coming up next on Moveable Feast with Relish.

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We all sleep easier knowing you're out there keeping us safe.

And on a personal note... (jet engines roar, gecko's speech muffled) (crowd cheering) (exhales) Just needed to get that off my chest.

Thank you.

>> GEICO-- proudly supporting the military for over 75 years.

>> We can't just take from nature, so we collaborate.

Ocean Spray works with nature every day to farm in a sustainable way.

♪ ♪ >> Ocean Spray is a proud sponsor of Moveable Feast.

>> At Pure Leaf, the most important ingredient in making tea is saying no.

We're committed to saying no to artificial flavors and sweeteners in our brewed iced teas.

♪ ♪ >> I am Errico Auricchio, the founder of BelGioioso Cheese.

I came in 1979 from Italy with my family and the memory of Italian cheese.

>> Ripe coconut with no added sugar and low sodium.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: Well, chefs, thank you for having me here in Boston.

>> Welcome.

>> So happy to have you.

>> ALEX: Awesome.

Well, both of you guys, have been credited as pioneers in Italian cuisine here in the city.

What would you say inspired you the most in your culinary kind of journey?

>> For me, I lived and I worked in Emilia-Romagna for about a year, and I trained as a pasta maker there.

I learned about myself as a chef there as well.

And, for me, I just wanted to bring a little piece of that back.

And when I opened Fox & the Knife, I wanted to really embrace the culture, not just the food.

>> ALEX: And Chef Douglas, what drew you to Italian cuisine?

>> You know, I always wanted a more complete family, right, I always wanted sitting around a big table.

And, you know, I come from a small household.

I just wanted that.

So I figured, why not do that with the public, and do that with such a great city that already is so entrenched in what we consider Italian cuisine and culture?

And why not do it my way and have some fun with it?

>> ALEX: So let's talk about the history of Italian food here in Boston.

>> I think for a long time, the North End was sort of synonymous with Italian food here and rightfully so.

You know, there are great cafes, there are... You can go, you can get a proper espresso or cappuccino, but I think that it's not the only Italian food.

And, you know, there's definitely an Italian American version of red sauce.

>> Yeah.

>> But I think as we move forward, there's always a new path, and a new direction.

>> I have to kind of come at it from a blank page.

Not being Italian, not doing a ton of travel in Italy, but trying to channel the sensibility and that, and that real culture that ties in with who I am.

And we're trying to do that with Mida.

Hopefully, I think we can take it a lot farther, but we still want to give that warmth, what people expect, but also blow those expectations out of the water.

>> ALEX: Would you say the local ingredients are really dictating that momentum forward?

>> We are granted such lovely farms around the city and such great people that are doing good things with amazing products, so we want to try to highlight that and bring that to fruition.

>> Use what you have, right?

So we're using what we have here and we're taking those sensibilities in the same way.

And, right now, it's shoulder season here.

So we actually kind of get the best of the late summer, the early fall.

And I think it's exciting.

It's exciting to say, "Okay, here's something "that's incredibly traditional.

"And how do I use this and make sense of this ingredient in this dish?"

>> ALEX: So you guys are gonna take me to a few places today to get some ingredients for our feast?

>> We're gonna go see my friends at One Mighty Mill, who are using organic local wheat to make stone-ground fresh flour.

>> ALEX: And Chef Douglas, where we going?

>> Alex, we're going to be going to Gibbet Hill today in Groton.

This place is really focusing on doing innovative new things.

We're trying to preserve all the things from August and the late summer, into such a hard fall and hard winter.

We're gonna try to show how good our produce is and really apply that to the meal.

>> ALEX: We will see you at the farm later.

And Chef Karen, we're going to One Mighty Mill.

Let's do it.

>> Let's go.

♪ ♪ >> Hey guys.

>> Hey, how are you?

>> ALEX: How are you?

>> Thanks for joining us.

>> ALEX: Thanks for having us.

>> Yeah, I can't wait to show you guys around.

>> I know that you had the location in Lynn, but I didn't realize you had one in Boston proper.

This is so cool.

>> We've been around for two years, and in the last year, we've been able to add three more, increased our production by four times.

>> Congratulations.

>> ALEX: Do you have to change your name?

No?

'Cause you're four mighty mills?

(laughter) ♪ ♪ Wow.

>> Wow.

It smells amazing.

>> ALEX: It smells incredible in here.

>> Yeah, it's fresh flour.

Something that nobody has ever smelled before.

>> ALEX: I don't know flour could have such a strong, like, fresh smell.

>> Yeah, I agree.

And it's as soon as we walked in the door.

>> I think we're used to this ingredient that has no soul and no life.

And we don't have a connection to it.

So we take it for granted that you open a bag of flour and you don't smell anything.

>> ALEX: What makes your flour so special?

>> You know, I think as a society, we've, we've industrialized basically the most basic crop and basic piece of our food system.

And so if you think about the way it was done 100 years ago, mills were the cornerstone to healthy local food systems.

So every town had a mill.

And when you have mills, you have farmers that grow a crop that needs to be processed.

100 years ago in America, we created this thing called the roller mill, which took the living germ out of the wheat berry and processed in a way that it could live forever.

It's amazing that we've lost touch with this thing that was so critical to how we were nourished.

In the year 1900 there were 25,000 grain mills in the United States, and by the year 2000 there were 201.

>> Wow.

>> So there's a reason why you've never smelled flour.

It's because it's been taken from our food systems.

>> ALEX: So that smell that we're smelling is actually the wheat germ?

>> No, that's that's the wheat berry just being crushed.

>> ALEX: It's the wheat berry and the germ is not being separated.

>> Right.

When you mill it the old way, the right way, you're just... you're just smashing the wheat seed.

>> ALEX: So your flour is alive.

>> Flour's alive.

It has a 90-day shelf life.

So if you picked up a bag of flour at a grocery store, any brand, and you looked at the date, it's gonna say two years, but in reality it can... it can live for 20 years.

>> ALEX: How many varieties of flour do you have here at One Mighty Mill?

>> Really, there's only one type of flour.

It's just the blend.

So it all starts with the wheat berry itself.

So the way that you make different flours is that you source specific wheat berries.

Let me go show you the wheat berry.

♪ ♪ Right now we're sourcing from three farms.

Our commitment, number one, is to local first.

So we source as much locally as we can.

In our first year, we sourced 86% of all the wheat we purchased was from one farm up in northern Maine.

They were the first growers to bring back organic wheat to the state of Maine.

So this is their wheat here.

This is an organic wheat berry.

It's incredibly good for you, which is... it flies in the face of everything that as a society we've come to do, which is like we think carbs are bad, right?

Wheat is bad, and no, it's the process that's bad.

Let me show you guys how this all works.

Okay, so we have three mills here.

These were all built by a craftsman up in northern Vermont, and he started building mills because he wanted to solve this problem that we saw.

So he's kind of like the real visionary.

These stones here are 48 inches in diameter.

Each one weighs 1,200 pounds.

♪ ♪ So take a look in here.

That's the top stone.

You can see how it's spinning.

We slowed it down so that you guys could get a look at it.

We'll load the top.

Wheat berries are gonna start falling.

We're gonna tighten the stone.

So these stones are gonna get really, really close together because you guys saw how small those wheat berries are.

So you want them to almost touch.

That's gonna crush those seeds.

What comes off the stone is 100% whole-grain flour It's not sifted.

It's actually little bit cakey, but then you'll see this little particles of bran.

When making pretzels you can use it because the pretzel's forgiving.

But, in a bagel or in pasta, you wouldn't.

As we see the flour go up the vacuum, through the sifter, we'll look at the three streams and you'll understand why that is separated.

>> The whole process is just the grinding, and then you're sifting, and that's it.

>> That's it.

Yeah.

>> That's wild that we've taken something that is that simple, and that pure, and we've broken the whole thing down and made it so complicated.

♪ ♪ >> These two sifters are the same filter.

So the finest flour is gonna pass through here, the middlings are here, and then where there's no filter, that's the 100% course brand.

>> ALEX: Cool.

>> Wow.

>> So this is the flour you're gonna use for the pasta.

>> This is the finest milled flour, right?

>> That's gonna be the finest.

>> I can't wait.

I'm really excited to highlight the flour and I always try and highlight the pasta, right?

That's always the star of the show.

Not, you know, whatever it's sauced with.

But I really think your flour is the star of the show.

>> ALEX: Thanks again.

>> See you guys.

>> Thanks so much.

♪ ♪ >> Alex, I wanted to introduce you to Maria, the head farmer at Gibbet Hill.

>> Hi.

>> ALEX: How are you?

>> Good.

How are you?

>> ALEX: Good.

Thank you for having us.

Absolutely.

It's a pleasure to have you here.

>> ALEX: Can you tell me a little bit about Gibbet Hill Farms and what you grow here, and the restaurant?

>> We grow on about an acre and a half of land.

And we're using what's called the minimal till system, which allows us to have super intensive production with small acreage.

Because the soil health is so strong, we can grow them intensively because there is no lack of nutrient density.

Right here you're seeing our daikon radish.

>> ALEX: Wow.

Oh, my gosh.

>> Gorgeous.

>> With kind of a beautiful burst in the center.

>> Look at that.

>> Nice, rich flavor.

>> ALEX: When you talk about a limited till system, what does that mean?

>> For us, we break ground once with a tractor, build the permanent beds, and we never bring a tractor in again.

So we don't have to deal with the compaction that's caused by that kind of aggressive working of the soil.

And so the soil stays loose.

The microbiology development that you need in order to have really healthy, nutrient dense food that continues to develop for four years now.

So this is actually a product of four years of work.

>> ALEX: Can I try a little bit of it?

>> I would love you to try a little bit of it.

Yeah.

>> I'll try a little too if you don't mind.

>> Thank you.

>> There you go.

(crunching loudly) >> ALEX: Yeah.

Wow.

>> Nice and watery.

>> And spicy, and sweet, and yummy mostly.

It's incredible.

>> ALEX: And right now we're in the fall season.

What sort of vegetables are coming up in and are you harvesting?

>> A lot of roots.

We also pulled a bunch of our butternut squash out and they're presently curing in the greenhouse.

>> ALEX: Curing means once you pull them, you kind of have to let them rest and develop.

>> So, when you first bring them out of the fields, they're not super sweet.

But then, if you lay them out, and give them time to just sit for a couple of weeks, all of those sugars really develop.

And then you end up with this glorious sweet, almost dessert-like squash.

>> Amazing.

>> We also have onions.

And the curing process for onions sweetens it, the sugars develop, but the outside of the onion also dries in a way that makes it storage safe.

>> I would love to use some of those radishes and those leeks, for sure.

>> Oh, yes.

>> And what about the butternut squash and the onions?

>> Yes!

♪ ♪ In a farm-to-restaurant relationship, it's figuring out how to kind of sync.

So here is our greenhouse.

And it's where we have all of our starts.

So the seedlings that before you put them out into the field.

But then it's also where we cure everything.

>> ALEX: Whoa!

>> Wow.

>> ALEX: I'm shook.

I was not expecting this at all.

>> Here we go.

So we have a few things going on in here.

This is our butternut curing.

It's getting nice and sweet, like we were talking about.

>> ALEX: How many butternut squash do you harvest at a time, and how long does it take for them to cure?

>> We wait for the plants to die back a bit.

So we harvest the butternut all at once.

It's one large harvest.

We're looking for kind of a dry stem.

And this rich color is indication that they're ready to come out of the fields.

Doesn't take a lot of space to produce quite a bit of food.

(laughs) >> ALEX: And that's because of the limited tilling that you do here.

>> Yeah, minimal till system.

Each plant is producing abundant fruit and is holding them to the end.

They're not being hit by disease, so we're really maximizing the amount that we can get out of that small space.

Nutrient-dense food is good for your health, but the other thing is, nutrients are actually what increases the flavor.

Better the soil-- (clicks tongue)-- the tastier the squash.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: What are you guys doing?

Because this all looks incredible.

>> You know, of course, I was really inspired by our trip to the mill, and so I wanted to focus on using that beautiful fresh flour.

So I'm making a toasted farro flour pappardelle with a rabbit ragu.

And some figs, some prosciutto.

>> ALEX: Chef Douglas, what are you gonna be making for our feast?

>> I'm gonna be making roasted duck, pairing it with some vegetables from Gibbet Hill-- purple radish, ground cherries, and we're just gonna have a super yummy meal.

>> ALEX: Literally, I cannot wait for this feast.

So let's get started with you.

♪ ♪ How do we get this pasta started?

>> So we have the One Mighty Mill flour here, and then we have some farro flour here.

And then what I do with the farro flour is I toast it in the oven to really draw out the nuttiness.

So we are going to mix these two flours together, combine them.

And then we're adding four eggs.

Three egg yolks.

>> ALEX: And that's just to add extra richness to the dough?

>> You got it.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: How long do you knead this dough for?

>> We'll probably knead it for about ten minutes.

And then we're gonna let it rest.

We're gonna let all that gluten relax... >> ALEX: Right.

>> So that we can roll it out.

And we can cut our pasta.

>> ALEX: Is that pink salt?

>> It's not pink salt.

This is kosher salt blended with roasted dried Thai chili and Sichuan peppercorn.

It's gonna give us a little more depth of flavor, right?

We're always building flavor from the beginning.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: Well, we've got our pasta rested, and you've rolled it out, and now what?

We sheet it?

>> Yeah, we're gonna sheet it.

Now, If you were at home, if you didn't have a stand mixer, you could roll this by hand.

I'm just getting it thin enough so we can put it through the sheeter.

But you could just roll it until you wanna be able to see through it almost.

So we're gonna start at one.

And that's the biggest opening.

And, when we roll through, I'm gonna go down to about seven.

I go very, very, very thin on my pasta.

I mean, that's one of the things that sets it apart.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: What's the key to consistency?

>> Being present, tasting with the cooks.

One of the things we say is "Remember you're cook and not a robot."

So, we follow the recipes, and that's really important.

But we also touch and we taste and we feel and we smell.

♪ ♪ We're gonna pop it into the oven.

We're gonna braise it low and slow for about two hours.

And when we pull it out, we are going to really carefully shred the rabbit meat off the legs into the ragu, and then we're gonna use the braise to become our pasta sauce.

We have that red wine, tomato, thyme, mushrooms, a little bit of the rabbit, but the pasta remains the star of the show.

>> ALEX: I'm drooling thinking about it.

I'm gonna let you sheet off the rest of this past.

I'm gonna go check on Douglas and this New England fall feast is about to go down.

♪ ♪ Douglas, this looks incredible.

Walk me through what this dish is.

>> Sure, so first we're gonna just start with a very easy sauce, a raisin jam.

This is just simple syrup poured over raisins to plump them.

We're gonna add them to our Robot Coupe, add them in with the liquid.

>> ALEX: And this is going over the duck.

>> This is going with the duck.

It's a sweetness.

Gives texture.

It gives some love.

It gives some real energy to the dish.

We're gonna add a little bit of vinegar for some... for some acidity, for some brightness.

We're gonna add some olive oil.

Okay, that's gonna keep the richness, keep the emulsification right on target.

And then there's a little bit of poppy seed.

And we're just gonna pulse it for just a moment.

(whirring) (whirring stops) There we go.

>> ALEX: Ooh!

That looks amazing.

So this is gonna go over that seared duck with all those roasted vegetables that we got this afternoon.

>> Balance out sweetness and balance out acidity, yes.

So you see, Alex, how it has that lovely texture?

>> ALEX: Oh, that looks amazing.

>> So I'm gonna have you put that in the bowl and I'm gonna get started on the duck.

>> ALEX: Okay.

Cool.

>> We're just gonna score this duck.

It has very thick skin, so we want to make sure we make edges in the duck, but we don't cut through to the flesh.

That's gonna really help the skin render, and release a lot of its fat, and help it get crispy.

So we're gonna start in a cold pan.

And the trick to that is to slowly bring up the fat.

Duck has a good amount of sugar for being a protein.

much more than chicken.

And it will just start to caramelize too quickly in the pan so we want to make sure we're heating it gently to render out that fat.

>> ALEX: So your culinary career has really taken you all over the world?

>> Absolutely.

A lot of that is shown in the food, but actually it comes out in the hospitality and the generosity that the restaurant provides as well, not just the ingredients and the techniques.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: What temperature did you cook it?

>> It should be about medium rare, yes.

It almost looks like a painting.

>> ALEX: So beautiful.

♪ ♪ >> Yes.

So I want to add just kind of everything we have.

We have sweet potatoes here.

We have some radish.

We have some leeks.

We really have a bounty of all of the land.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: So I'm gonna let you finish up this dish.

I'm going to get started on my dessert.

>> Okay.

>> ALEX: And then we are ready for this feast.

♪ ♪ So for today's feast I'm gonna be making a dessert-- a buttermilk biscuit featuring the One Mighty Mill flour.

And I'm gonna add a little bit of mascarpone cheese.

♪ ♪ This cheese is gonna give it a nice richness.

I've got the heavy cream in here.

I'm gonna add a little bit of vanilla extract as well.

♪ ♪ And then I've got the flour from One Mighty Mill that we picked up today, and I really was inspired by the nuttiness and the earthiness that came off of this alive flour.

I've got some sugar.

Then I've got some cubed cold butter.

Cold butter is key when you want fluffy biscuits.

So, the butter is all nice and incorporated, and then we're gonna add our wet ingredients.

♪ ♪ I'm not much of a baker, but I appreciate a good biscuit.

And so biscuits are pretty much like the... like one of the only desserts I know how to make.

♪ ♪ They look really good if I do say so myself.

You want your biscuits to have like a nice, crunchy top.

To achieve that, you do a little bit of heavy cream or buttermilk on top.

Sprinkle some turbinado sugar.

And I'm gonna serve these biscuits with a little ode to New England-- Concord grapes and blueberry compote.

I'm gonna add some figs and then I'm gonna add some sugar.

I'm gonna let this compote go for about 20 minutes.

I'm gonna pop my biscuits in the freezer, then in the oven.

I think it's gonna be the perfect way to end this meal.

Speaking of, I think our guests are getting pretty hungry, so let's cue the B roll.

Cue the B roll!

♪ ♪ >> Yes, yeah.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: Hello and welcome to our feast.

Tonight's meal celebrates the spirit of these two incredible chefs, as well as highlights the incredible fall bounty available here in New England.

Chefs, will you share with everybody what you made tonight?

>> I had the good fortune to visit One Mighty Mill, and they are bringing back stone-ground organic flour.

So I made a toasted farro pappardelle with a braised rabbit ragu.

A little bit of figs and prosciutto.

The rabbit, while it's absolutely delicious, the pasta is really the star of the dish.

>> ALEX: And Chef Douglas.

>> Hi, everybody, welcome.

I sourced all of my vegetables from Gibbet Hill.

I wanted to show the bounty, but also the beauty of what New England has to offer; especially the colors, the textures.

And I wanted to bring that all together on one plate, conveying on my duck and really show that off.

So thank you very much.

>> ALEX: And to finish off tonight's meal, I created a buttermilk biscuit featuring the flour from One Mighty Mill.

And I created a compote featuring some seasonal Concord grapes and blueberries grown right here in New England with a little bit of whipped mascarpone cheese and some edible flowers from right here at Gibbet Hill.

We hope you enjoy.

>> Did you love that flour even more?

>> Yes.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: I want to thank everybody here for joining us for today's feast.

Thank you to Gibbet Hill Farm for hosting this beautiful meal, as well as providing some of your produce for tonight's meal as well.

And if you would like any of these recipes, make sure to go to moveablefeast.relish.com.

Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

And who knows?

Maybe next episode we'll be feasting in your backyard.

Cheers, everybody.

Happy feasting.

>> Cheers!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> For more information about this episode, recipes, and behind the scenes fun, make sure you go to relish.com.

Follow us @moveablefeast_TV on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

See you next time on A Moveable Feast with Relish.

>> Major funding provided by: >> Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

(gecko clears throat, feedback squeals) >> GEICO would like to take a moment to say thank you to our military service members at home and abroad for all their hard work and sacrifice.

We all sleep easier knowing you're out there keeping us safe.

And on a personal note... (jet engines roar, gecko's speech muffled) (crowd cheering) (exhales) Just needed to get that off my chest.

Thank you.

>> GEICO-- proudly supporting the military for over 75 years.

>> We can't just take from nature, so we collaborate.

Ocean Spray works with nature every day to farm in a sustainable way.

♪ ♪ >> Ocean Spray is a proud sponsor of Moveable Feast.

>> At Pure Leaf, the most important ingredient in making tea is saying no.

We're committed to saying no to artificial flavors and sweeteners in our brewed iced teas.

♪ ♪ >> I am Errico Auricchio, the founder of BelGioioso Cheese.

I came in 1979 from Italy with my family and the memory of Italian cheese.

>> Ripe coconut with no added sugar and low sodium.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪