October might be my favorite month at Beach Plum Farm.
There is something about this time of year that makes being a chef on a farm especially rewarding. The mornings are cooler, the days get a little shorter, and the fields begin to change almost overnight. Summer is about abundance—tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and more produce than you sometimes know what to do with. October feels different. It asks you to slow down and pay attention.
One of the best parts of being the chef at Beach Plum Farm is that the relationship between the kitchen and the farm team is real. We’re working together every day. I’m constantly talking with Michael Collins and the team about what is growing, what is ready, what needs another week, and sometimes what we suddenly have a whole lot of.
Those conversations are where a lot of our menus begin.
Michael might tell me that the carrots are perfect, the fennel needs to come out of the ground, or we have beautiful greens that need to be used right now. From there, the kitchen gets to work. There is something pretty special about planning a dish around what is 100 yards away instead of what showed up on an order sheet.
October gives us some of my favorite ingredients to work with—carrots, beets, turnips, sweet potatoes, winter squash, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, leeks, fennel, and hearty greens.
These are vegetables that belong next to a fire. They can be roasted, charred, braised, smoked, or cooked slowly until they become something completely different from where they started.
And then, of course, there is our heritage pork.
For me, that connection between the people growing the food, the animals we raise here, and the cooks preparing it is what makes Beach Plum Farm different. We all have a hand in what eventually reaches the table.
That idea will be at the center of one of the dinners I am most excited about this fall.
On Monday, October 26, I’ll be cooking alongside Chef David from Alice in Philadelphia for our Fire & Harvest Dinner. We’ll welcome everyone into the garden at 5:30 PM for appetizers before sitting down together for dinner at 6:00 PM.
David and I will each prepare two appetizers and two courses. But the farm gets the first say in what those dishes will be.
We’ll walk the fields, talk with Michael and the farm team, see what October has given us that week, and build the menu from there. There will be fish, there will certainly be Beach Plum Farm heritage pork, and there will be plenty coming directly from the ground around us. We’re not trying to decide every detail months ahead of time. That would defeat the purpose.
That is how I think food here should work. The season gets the first say. The farmers get the second. Then it is our job as chefs to listen and cook.
October also brings some of my favorite nights at Beach Plum Farm. There is a point during dinner when the sun disappears, the temperature drops, the fire is going, and everyone settles around the table. You can smell wood smoke coming from the kitchen and hear dinner happening around you.
It doesn't feel much like a restaurant.
And that's exactly the point.
I hope you'll come experience it with us this October.
- Chef Gus
