Coperta’s chef de cuisine Kenny Minton could be using his Saturday morning to sleep in after a long week. Instead, he spends Friday nights prepping for the weekend, gets up at 8 or 9 a.m. the next day and drives nearly 40 minutes with his sous chef, Cam Lee, to Boulder where the two of them shop for planned restaurant dishes at the Boulder County Farmers Market.
“We’ve only missed three so far,” Minton said.
On Saturday, Aug. 12, a particularly cloudy and humid day, the pair strolled through the market with a produce cart in tow and a mission in mind. Next month, they will introduce a new menu, highlighting fruits and vegetables ripe for the picking at the end of the summer harvest.
Minton and Lee like to collaborate with the farmers themselves, figuring out what produce will be in season or pre-ordering special items that the growers introduce to them. On most days, 90% of Coperta’s menu is sourced from local farmers, and the chefs like to keep menu descriptions vague in case they find a new fruit or vegetable at the market to feature in the “Farm Snack,” for example, a rotating appetizer that changes with the season.
“I make the joke that there isn’t a single day I don’t talk to a farmer,” Minton said.
The Beast + Bottle restaurant group, which owns both Coperta, 400 E. 20th Ave., and Apple Blossom, 822 18th St., has always worked closely with farmers. Russ Fox, executive chef at Apple Blossom often pops into the Longmont Farmers Market when he’s not working Saturday brunch, for inspiration.
“It’s cool because some of these farmers we’ve cultivated relationships with will turn to us and ask us what we want them to grow next year,” Fox said.
Coperta’s staff favors the Boulder County Farmers Market (which includes the Longmont location) specifically because it’s a producer-only market, meaning each and every farmer grows their own produce and raises their own animals. But if the chefs stay in Denver, they usually attend the City Park Farmers Market.
On Aug. 12, Minton and Lee’s first stop on their shopping excursion was Toohey & Sons Organic, a family farm in rural Boulder County. Coperta offers a free amuse bouche to VIP guests, who might be celebrating a birthday or special event, and it changes from week to week. The chefs like to let the farmers’ market inspire their complimentary dishes, and last week they served roasted beets from Toohey & Sons with Calabrian chili, honey, olive oil and fennel.
“It’s really fun for me as a farmer to work with chefs like Kenny and Cam who are just ready for anything and can make something great out of whatever we have on hand,” said Christian Toohey, co-owner of Toohey & Sons. “If we have some extra produce that we need to get rid of, they’re willing to run a special or figure out a way to use it.”
Because of the excess rain and grasshoppers this summer, Toohey said his harvest has been pushed back five weeks. So, Minton and Lee also visited Croft Farms, out of Kersey, where the soil is different that the usual clay soil in Boulder County. As a result, it’s less impacted by the rain and the crop yields can be different.
Minton and Lee ended up purchasing some of Croft’s heirloom tomatoes, which they will slice thin for Coperta’s current steak dish. They also bought some cherry tomatoes, which they use about 10 lbs of each week, along with basil, zephyr squash and celery.
“You’ll never know what celery actually tastes like if you keep buying it from King Soopers,” Minton said. “This home-grown celery is some of the best you’ll ever have.”
They then walked over to Ela Family Farms and snagged 20 lbs of Palisade peaches for their smoked ricotta dumplings (gnudi) made with peaches, pistachio and sage. Palisade peaches have been harder to get than usual this year because demand has risen due to Georgia’s supply running low (thanks to a warm winter there).
Another one of the chefs’ favorite vendors is Black Cat Organic Farm. The Boulder family farm directly supplies the Black Cat Restaurant in town, so it doesn’t deliver to Denver, meaning the market in Boulder is the only way to score some of its produce. “Their bulk quantities are limited, so we like to pop in each week and see if anything sticks out,” Minton said.
Lee and Minton end every shopping trip by selecting a bouquet of flowers from Longmont-based Fresh Herb Company for the host stand at Coperta.
After speaking with all the farmers at the market, they were able to put together a good idea of what ingredients they would be able to use for their upcoming seasonal menu, including black garbanzo beans, tomatoes, corn, melons, peppers, garlic and onion varieties.
“As long as the weather is predictable based on what has happened in the past, everything should be available until the first frost,” Minton said. “If there’s a freak storm, hail, a grasshopper migration, wildfires or any other extreme variable, then some or all could be lost.”
And the Coperta chefs don’t mind the bumper-to-bumper traffic they sometimes run into on the way home from Boulder: it’s 40 minutes they can use to brainstorm other dishes they can make with the rainbow of produce securely tucked in the back seat.
“I don’t remember the last time we listened to music,” Minton joked.
