Stove and Oven

We purchased a 4 burner stove and a pizza oven this week for the Farm to Table experience at Restoration Farm.

The stove has 4 burners which are rated at 30,000 btus and the oven has a rating of 17,000 btus. Both are portable and can be either hauled from eating area to eating area or placed on our trailer and taken to events away from the farm.

Lake Expo report

The following was posted on the LakeExpo website:

Posted: Monday, March 16, 2015 6:03 pm | Updated: 6:14 pm, Mon Mar 16, 2015.

by Connye Griffin

 

Chef Charles Clark of Restoration Farm claimed top honors at Seven Springs Winery’s 6th Annual Silver Cup Chef’s Challenge on Saturday, March 14. His mentor, André Torres, presented the trophy to Chef Charles, making the moment even sweeter.
Chef Charles is in partnership with his brother, Larry Clark, and sister-in-law, Kat Clark. Their dreams take form at Restoration Farm, located northwest of Stover. The farm is a place where non-GMO seed for heirloom vegetables, herbs, and tomatoes grow the chemical-free way.

 

Charles believes in the deeper, fuller flavor of micro-greens, tiny shoots of arugula, radish, red leaf lettuce, mizuna, and spinach. Restoration Farm grows these, and Chef Charles uses them to add savor and flavor to his foods. He featured radish micro-greens in the salmon-stuffed appetizer served over a bed of white beans, lemon, basil and olive oil. He also made spinach chips. The entrée included pickled red onion and arugula micro-greens as accents for a cocoa rub beef tenderloin. The dessert was a sculpture of cookie and caramel towering over a frozen cognac soufflé.

For the final round, chefs prepared foods from two of three categories: fin, feather, and fur. The salmon and beef tenderloin were Chef Charles answer to the challenge.

The preliminary round in which he qualified for finals as the People’s Choice Winner was French cuisine.

Restoration Farm is a new beginning and second-act for all the Clarks. Instead of retiring to a life of leisure and grandchildren, the Clarks bought land and have built a cabin retreat for anyone who wants a bit of solace. Nearby are pens for goats, chickens with room to roam, greenhouses for tender micro-greens, flowers, newly planted fruit trees and berry vines, and a barn equipped with a kitchen. Guests sit at outdoor tables breathing in the sweet scents of flowers under soft lights while enjoying Chef Charles award-winning food in the open air as people often do in France and Italy.

Food service promises to be impeccable as it was at the Silver Cup Chef’s Challenge where Larry and Kat Clark trained their grandchildren to serve women first and to be gracious. After the preliminary round, those grandchildren wrote a thank-you letter to Chef Charles. Moved by their gesture and desire to help, Chef Charles welcomed their participation during the final round.

With a nod to the excellence and expertise among the other three finalists, Chef Charles acknowledged just how challenging this competition is. Well-trained chefs can be found at Lake of the Ozarks, and Chef Charles is proud to be among them. Just before the finals round, he said a quiet prayer, asking God to “let the old man have one more time.” He’s humble and grateful to have that second chance at cooking great food on Restoration Farms after having closed his AAA 4-diamond restaurant some time ago.

The Clarks look forward to opening the Farm later this year. They plan to serve 16-20 by invitation or reservation on Friday and Saturday nights at Restoration Farm, north on 135 west of Stover. Then during the winter, Chef will bottle his signature tomato jam and other sauces for sale at area farm markets.

Read more about Restoration Farm at Our Eyes Upon Missouri

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7 Springs Winery - 6th Annual Chefs Challenge

On March 14th Restoration Farm's Chef Charles Clark competed in the 7 Springs Winery 6th Annual Silver Cup Chef Challenge.

We are so thankful for 7 Springs Winery giving us an opportunity to compete in the event. Not only was it a fun and neat experience it was a life changing one. The event is a benefit for the Tri-County YMCA and we were happy to contribute to a successful day.

Here are a few photos.

 The first photo is of our starter, Salmon stuffed with Shrimp Mousse' on a bed of white bean ragout. The second photo is our Entree', Cocoa Rub Beef Tenderloin with caramelized red wine aujus on Cauliflower-Masher with Asparagus. The third photo was our Dessert, Frozen Cognac Souffle'.

The Restoration Farm crew was made up of my wife, Kat, our daughter, Missy, and our G-Kids, Dakota, Cierra and Kai.

It was a tough competition and the judges had a difficult time choosing the winner. This year's winner of the Silver Cup is our Chef Charles.

For more go to LakeExpo and LakeExpo Photos 

The Monday after the event the County Health Inspector dropped by our farm and approved our kitchen for canning and for serving food to the pubic. In May we will be opening up our Farm to Table Eatery here at Restoration Farm.

Although our decks are not built yet here are some images of what I hope they look like.

Our Restaurant seating will be by reservation only and limited to 20-25 people per night.

To make a reservation go to our Restoration Farm website.

To contact me for more information: Larry Clark

To help Restoration Farm grow please visit our Go Fund Me page.

7 Springs Winery 2015 Silver Cup Chefs Challenge

7 Springs Winery has been sponsoring a chefs challenge for the past 6 years which is a benefit for the Lake Ozark YMCA. The idea is for a  group of the top chefs in the Lake of the Ozark area to compete by preparing 3 course meals for people to sample and for a 3 judge panel.

My brother, Charles Clark, is a chef and a very good one. We decided to see if we could enter the event as a farm since we do not currently have an eating establishment. The owner thought that would be an interesting draw so on January 31st went to the first event. 

We did very well at that event but came in second. The good thing is we won the people's choice award with the highest votes any restaurant has received in the six years. So we had a chance to get into the finals if no other chef received more votes.

We found out on March 1st that we had earned a place in the finals to take place March 14th. The competition was 3 of the best restaurants at the lake against us.

As they prepared to announce the winner the owner shared how this was the toughest competition they have had and the judges really had a difficult time narrowing down the winner.

Here is the winning 3 course meal.

 The winning chef.

 The winning team.

How in the world did a farm beat out the top chefs at the lake? Determination, a dream and hard work.

What is next for the farm? 

Kitchen inspection, hopefully license as a restaurant, a lodging establishment a canning operator.

Our dream is to have several outdoor eating areas on the farm for from 2 to 12 people. What those areas might look like:

What this post is really about is having a dream, working to achieve that dream and being determined to be the best you can be.