1. Cheese service at Journeyman.
As you may know, we’ve been running cheese boards over at backbar for a long while now, and we’ve very much enjoyed keeping several amazing cheeses on hand for the bar menu. We’ve been working closely with Formaggio Kitchen, to keep a beautiful sampling of local and European cheeses available, and we’d like to share that with Journeyman’s guests once in a while. It’s not unusual, particularly in Europe, to be offered cheese before — or instead of — dessert, and we’re going to start the tradition here at Journeyman. Sometimes we’ll have a cheese course right on the tasting menus, but sometimes your server will come around to offer you a cheese board before we finish your meal to offer you a selection of cheeses.

2. Cheese Blogging with Jasper Hill Cellars & Culture Magazine
I’ve joined the ranks of 20 “wedge heads” helping Jasper Hill birth their latest cheese, an alpine-style cow’s milk cheese, with Culture Magazine’s help. Every month, Jasper Hill sends me cheese, and I do three things: taste the cheese with Diana & Tse Wei, fill out a feedback form for the cheese-makers over at Jasper Hill, and write a blog entry about the cheese for Culture. This is pretty exciting for all three of us, as Jasper Hill makes some of our favorite cheeses (Winnimere for me!), and Culture Magazine is an amazing resource for anyone interested in cheese.
The first blog entry is online at The 2012 Birth of a Cheese blog.

When Journeyman opened, we talked about everything here being a story: the ingredients have stories (we know the farmers, we look forward to the arrival of seasons and their associated produce), the dishes have stories (how elements are combined into whole plates that relate ingredients and techniques to each other), the menus have stories (we talk endlessly about how to structure our tasting menus to present them as the best story), and so on. It seemed logical to treat our beverages the same way, so we choose drinks that have depth to them: an amazing winemaker story, an amazing tradition or historical grape at their core, or a particular social function we love. How we translate that depth is the stuff that makes our wine list unique.

There are few things that please me, as the wine director, more than writing down the name of a wine for a guest at the end of the night. If you ask me to write something down, that tells me that I’ve served you a drink that resonated with you. One of the things I love about wine is its inherent discontinuity: you can taste the place it was made and the place you first tried it each time you open a bottle. I like to imagine that when you bring home a bottle that you first had with us at Journeyman, you’ll remember us. Every time I serve a guest a wine that they truly love, the memory of their joy is added to my memories of that bottle, and no matter where or when I crack the next one, I’ll think of them again. Goethe said that architecture is like “frozen music,” and that is pretty close to how I feel about wine: assuming that you swap “wine” for “architecture,” “fermented” for “frozen,” and “memory” for “music.”

Where does your wine come from? Our tastes are primarily Old World, but we buy wine from all over the globe. We wish — at least in theory — that we could make a wine list entirely of local producers, but alas! we love wine and New England is hardly wine country. Our chefs have a taste for French and German wines, I have a taste for Italian and Spanish wines, and those 4 countries are amply represented on our list.

Who makes your wine? We have a bias toward small producers: we can’t know every winemaker the way we can meet so many of our farmers, but we still prefer the mentality of small-scale production. In particular, we love family-owned and operated estates, and we love vignerons, the folks who grow their own grapes and make their own wine. We believe, as many of our wine heroes have claimed, that 90% of what makes good wine happens in the vineyard. We have a personal bias toward female winemakers, toward organic winemakers, toward biodynamic winemakers, and toward low-intervention winemakers. Our taste in winemakers and wine situate us squarely in the “natural wine” movement.

Where’s my Cali Chardonnay? I don’t mean to dump on either California wine or Chardonnay, but I do mean to say that there are conventions in wine that we choose to ignore: we don’t have a prestige list of Burgundies or Barolos, and we don’t have a high-end list of super-sized California wines. Some of that is simply a matter of cost, as we’re a small & young restaurant, and some of it is a more stylized reason, which is that we hope you will choose a wine for its taste or its story rather than for its name.
After you get past our preferences in winemakers, it all comes down to our preferences in earth and grape. We’re suckers for indigenous varieties and yes, we know how contested a term that is. We’re suckers for lesser-known grapes, old vine grapes, low-yield grapes, and so on. We love the history of European wines, and the history of techniques like amphora-aging or pigeage. We love wine makers who let the wine be, even if that means this year’s vintage is nothing like the last, and even if that means sometimes they release a wine from 2009 before they release a wine from 2001.
Wine culture in California is a complex and rapidly evolving thing — it’s only in its infancy, comparatively — so while there’s a ton of amazing wine out there, there’s also a ton of stuff that many of us couldn’t tell apart in a blind tasting. We buy wines that have a lot of character to them, which often means less new oak, less new technique, and, unfortunately, less new world. If there’s a new world wine that you love, by all means, recommend it to us. All of us drink wine away from work, too, and love to try new things.

What should I drink with my meal? We don’t really buy wines that we don’t think are food-friendly. To us, a food-friendly wine has a little bit of reserve to it, whether that means a higher acid content to help you taste each bite and sip anew, or more restrained wood and tannin to keep keep you from turning turning into a purple-toothed fire-breather. We’re always happy to help you choose a bottle or glass that will pair seamlessly with your meal, but we also believe in the value of simply drinking what you love (assuming you can find something you love on our list of what we love), whether or not it’s a perfect pairing. Every server at Journeyman has a short list of the bottles they love best off our list, and when it’s possible, I suggest asking them for a recommendation: their passion and enthusiasm can often make a wine that much more delicious.

Where can I buy that wine? We rarely sell wine that’s available in every liquor store, but our city has had a major wine revolution in the past few years with wine and retail institutions like the Wine Bottega, City Feed & Supply, Federal Wine & Spirits, Ball Sq Fine Wines, and Formaggio Kitchen supporting natural wine, & a bunch of newer ventures like Central Bottle, Terra Vino, and Streetcar pulling in alongside them to sell it pretty exclusively.

I’ll post about the way our wine list is formatted and about some specific wines in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Catherine came to us from Tufts where she’d received a graduate education in Sustainable Agriculture. Her primary gig is in that field, and she currently consults with small food producers around New England as the Director of Marketing and Outreach for a great start-up called Forage (http://www.forageyourfood.com/ ), which connects producers and consumers of local food. She is knowledgeable and passionate about local food and health, and the partnership between her work at Forage and our work here was clear when we hired her. More recently, though, we’ve found new talents in her: along with making the aprons our bartenders wear nightly, Catherine volunteered to write our menus on the walls of backbar. Knowing she had nice handwriting, we handed her a chalk marker and set her loose.

Already artistic, Catherine began an extensive project to research lettering, fonts, various schools of design, and has tackled decorating the walls of both Journeyman and backbar with the fruits of her labor. Our menus, which change frequently, are now the highlight of the space. While we had imagined the chalkboards to be utilitarian, she has made them the centerpiece of the space with her temporary art. Her chalkboard art is also on display around town at places like RJ Gourmet and she accepts commissions in both chalk and ink.

Below, you can watch some time lapse videos of her process. If you’d like to hire Catherine for chalkboard art or other lettering projects, drop a comment here & she will follow up with you.

Chalkboard Art at backbar by Catherine Owens

Chalkboard Art at Journeyman & backbar by Catherine Owens

One of the first things people notice about Journeyman is often the vertical garden and large glass window standing out against the brick and the parking lot. The wooden wine crates and foliage add a backdrop for our diners that is unique in Boston, and its plumbing pipe structure provided a blessed structural support for the restaurant during difficult times.

Guests often have questions about about each plant we grow and whether we use any of them in the dishes they eat. Our garden is in constant evolution, and our answers to these questions change frequently; in order to give those answers and that evolution some context, I’ve decided to write out the story of the garden’s beginnings.

In the spring of 2010, before Journeyman was open, Diana started our initial plantings on her home porch, those first plants included a number of micro greens and herbs from seed (like mache, tatsoi, Mexican mint marigold, summer savory and lemon basil), and many of them thrived in the summer sun & rain that year. Some were in temporary containers from which we’d transplant the seedlings, but many were in the wine cratesalready. When the restaurant construction was winding down in the late summer of 2010 and we were almost ready to open, we carefully drove every crate and every seeding to the restaurant, hauled them up our library ladder to their new homes, and fastened them in place.

The micro greens and herbs did well throughout the fall but the shorter days of winter made for a difficult growing season. Over time we changed our repertoire from edible greens like red veined sorrel and bright lights chard to ferns, succulents and heartier house plants.

When Journeyman was hit by a car in the summer of 2011, we were forced to temporarily abandon our garden. When we reopened that August, we lovingly named the new installation — which used some of the original crates, and all the original pipes, but none of our original plants — “Garden version 2.0.” We took the garden re-boot as a chance to improve our planning and planting. We took out some of the original thirty-six crates to let in some light and added more hanging plants. We planted more of the things that seem to thrive in the ebb and flow of temperature and light in our window, like borage, nasturtiums and morning glories.

As the Journeyman gardener, I try to pay attention to what guests, chefs, and other staff say they would like to see growing in the windows. I have been asked to plant things that “look like aliens” and have had requests for venus fly traps registered as well. Diana & Tse Wei brought Roosevelt, their bonsai-like rosemary plant, from home. The nasturtium leaves that drape luxuriously over the window boxes are edible as are the striking purple blossoms from the borage plant that taste faintly of cucumber.

My background as a pharmacist lends me a fascination with medicinal plants, the vinca vine growing on the top row is actually the basis for a number of chemotherapy drugs. We had rue growing last fall, which besides making a very interesting infusion in vodka, has been purported to cure most “ills of humanity.”. For now and until the days get longer, we have a type of elkhorn fern, lemongrass (thank you, Ronnarong!), vinca vine, the ever indestructible pothos, nasturtiums, morning glory, borage, christmas cactus, sage, rosemary, hen and chicks, pyrethrin, wormwood and eucalyptus.

Right now most of the edible leaves and micro greens you see on the dishes are not coming from the window boxes, but once Spring rolls around, we will see the kitchen staff up on the ladder with scissors, pilfering from the garden again. With more sunlight and warmer temperatures, a lot of our edible seedlings will have a better shot at survival.

I am always happy to give “garden tours” to any curious guest and always appreciate advice or suggestions as well. I will even buy a drink for any person who can find me a venus fly trap.

9 Sanborn Court, Union Square
Somerville, MA 02143
Reservations (617) 718-2333 or eat@journeymanrestaurant.com

In the year 1154 Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henry II of England, bringing as her dowry much of southwest France. This led to several hundred years of war between England and France and also the beginnings of the Bordeaux wine trade.

That year, along with 1642, 1855, 1892 and 1982 will figure into our story of the wines of Bordeaux’s Left Bank; the Medoc and Graves and Sauternes where Cabernet Sauvignon is king for reds, Sauvignon Blanc for whites, and Semillon for sweet.

We’ll try wines from all the major appellations, and we’ll taste and talk about the relative importance of class, grape blend, soil, technology, and vintage. More importantly, Len Rothenberg, an expert with several decades of experience, will be sharing stories and opinions as we go.

Although no prior knowledge is required, we promise you this will not be the adult ed version of wine tasting. It will be informative, fun, good tasting, too.

The Tasting

White
2010 Ch. Chantegrive (Graves)

Red
2009 Ch. Lebosq (Medoc)
2009 Ch. Beaumont (Haut Medoc)
2008 Ch Giscours (Margaux)
2005 Ch. Lacoste Borie (Pauillac)
2008 Ch. Hortevie (St. Julien)
2005 Ch. L’Argilus du Roi (St Estephe)
2005 Ch. Haut Bergey (Pessac-Leognan)

The Dinner
First course: Soupe aux Moules
Second Course: Blanquette de Veau
served with 2009 Ch. Caronne Ste. Gemme (Haut Medoc)
Third Course: Vanilla, Rum and Stone Fruit
served with 2009 Haut Charmes (Sauternes)

The cost of the seminar and dinner will be $95 per person which includes wine and food, but not tax or gratuity.

We borrowed the name for that kind of wine from a man we were lucky to call a friend, and to whom we were lucky to serve dinner on his last trip to Boston. Joe Dressner, the man in question, imported real wine from around the world to the United States, and shared it with friends near and far through his company, Louis/Dressner.

The Louis/Dressner wine portfolio has converted all of us at Journeyman into winos and wine aficionados, because Joe’s passion was infectious, and because real wine is truly delicious. Joe Dressner died recently, after a long fight against brain cancer. He never lost his sense of humor, or his deep appreciation for food, wine, and friends, and our respect and fondness for him and his mission is sharpened and deepened with his loss. Together with our good friends from the Wine Bottega, Journeyman is sharing our love in the form of a tribute dinner to honor Joe.

This will NOT be a somber event with toasts and dirges, rather, it will be a rollicking good time to celebrate what Joe cared most about: good wine, good food, good times, and good causes. We’ll make merry with over 10 wines from Joe’s portfolio and a Journeyman-style feast. All the proceeds from the night will go to Partners in Health, Joe’s charity of choice.
Here’s what we’re planning:

Space is limited, so please RSVP as soon as possible: 617-718-2333.

Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 7:00pm
$80 per person, includes food, wine, tax, and gratuity.
All proceeds from the dinner will be donated to Partners in Health, for their work in Haiti, and additional contributions to Partners in Health can be made that evening.

NV Chaussard “You are so Bubbly”
served with assorted housemade charcuterie

Trio of French Muscadets: Domaine de la Pépière “Muscadet Sévre et Main”, Domaine Luneau-Papin “La Grange”, and Domaine de la Pépière “Clos des Briords Cuvée Vieilles Vignes”
served with roasted cauliflower soup, oysters, and red cabbage

Trio of Italian reds: Vigneto Saetti Lambrusco di Salomino di S. Croce, Tami Nero D’Avola, Foradori Teroldego
served with roast pork shoulder, potato gratin, suitable vegetables

Domaine Renardat-Fâche Cerdon Methode Ancestrale, Bugey
served with creme brulee and poached, spiced pears

Roagna Barolo Chinato
served with cookies and marshmallows

“There are no journeymen at the Journeyman. The trio behind this restaurant are clearly master craftspeople[.]”

When we designed Journeyman, simply running a restaurant seemed like the height of hubris: we were neophytes making it up as we went along. We didn’t hire seasoned professionals who’d grown up in front of the stove or carrying plates; we hired by personality and feel, finding the people who felt the same passion, dedication – and yes, insanity — as us. We invented systems as we needed them, made up our own language and symbols to communicate, and reinvented those systems and languages just as often. When we opened last year, our questions were about whether there were enough people in Boston who wanted to eat the food we made, sit in the dining room we’d built, drink the wines we wanted to sell, or walk down the lonely alley that dead-ended in a park we love to find us. Our questions were about how to get our staff home at 2am after the buses stopped running, and about which cleaner to use when we mopped the floors. They were simple conundrums, about learning new tasks, new rhythms, and new necessities.

Thursday night, we toasted with our friends and family to Journeyman’s first year, and set ourselves the next set of goals. Our questions are more complex now, they’re about how to better support the community around us, how to open a cocktail bar, how to keep improving our food, service, and beverages, how to embrace and empower the new people who join our company, and how we communicate what we want to be next to everyone who walks in our door. We want, very much, to become a restaurant of unparalleled caliber; if simply running a restaurant was an attainable form of hubris, we feel the need to up the ante: we’d like to strive toward becoming the best restaurant we’re capable of being, and to be able to hold ourselves up next to the restaurants that have inspired, fed, and guided us in Boston, and all over the world. Even if we find ourselves lacking in the comparison, having the ambition to improve ourselves seems the best form of respect and acknowledgment we can offer everyone who has supported us so far.

These are incredibly lucky challenges to have, and we’re glad to have them. We owe an immense debt of gratitude to so many people who have helped us survive this first year, from advisers, to customers, to staff. Below is an incomplete list of the people without whom last year would not have been possible; we offer our sincere thanks and love to all of them:

Ben Dryer, Nick Branigan, Seth Hill, Len Rothenberg, Georg Lauer, Ed Rapacki, Mike Ellman, Kevin Gold, Dan Bradley, Jim + Sharon Ermilio, Peter + Viva Lajoie, Eric Klotch, Scott Abrahamson, Jared Rudnick, Dan Hanken, Jenny Hong, Dora Sanchez, Amber Lee, Andrew Ferrell, Bradford Yates, Sasha Wachtel, Christine Oliver, Maggie Kaiser, Catherine Owens, Andrea Hasselbacher, Ry Strohm-Herman, Vaughn Tan, Dennis Clark, Kevin + Rose Martin, Shelley Barandes, Mimi Graney, Trisha McCauley, Gordon Carlson, Campbell Ellsworth, Smita Sihag, Henry Patterson, etc.

photo by Johanna Bobrow

Last Saturday was the first of our Saturday BBQs, aimed at adding another layer of delicious fun to the Market that already boasts some of our favorite farmers, musicians, festivals, artists, and workshops. The food’s made by our line cook, Dan Hanken. Dan is a frisbee player, cellist, and – we discovered after hiring him – a smoked meat aficionado. For our first week of serious BBQ, he rolled out house-made sausages, dry-rubbed veal ribs, brined chickens, pulled pork, and sliced brisket. We also started out with a few Market-sourced sides: sweet pickles, cornbread, grilled asparagus, and dirty rice, along with two kinds of baked beans.

photo by Johanna Bobrow

photo by Johanna Bobrow

Our five course dinner will cover our favorite brunch classics — in reinvented form, of course — and have a few other surprises, as well.

Waffles
with a side of sausage

Eggs Florentine
with salmon and duck egg

Bacon + Hash
with ketchup

Yogurt
with granola and fruit

Assorted Bagels
with cream cheese

Breakfast will be available from 5:30pm-10:oopm Sunday May 8th and Monday May 9th, and you’ll be able to round out your mother’s day meal with a few breakfast-inspired cocktails (we’re playing with the classics here, too, look for our takes on the mimosa and bloody mary, among other great options).

Reserve online or call 617.718.2333.

Please note that we will not be serving our regular menus for these two nights, just the five course brunch.
We apologize that there will be no 3 or 7 course options, no vegetarian menus, and no substitutions.

Please Note

“Please inform the waitstaff before ordering if you have a food allergy”

“Warning: consuming raw or undercooked meat, poultry, seafood, shellfish or eggs increases your risk of foodborne illness”

“Starred items may be served raw or undercooked”

“Employees must wash hands before returning to work”

Before opening, we ran a facebook challenge to our friends and fans to generate haiku versions of the “employees must wash hands” warning, and our wonderful graphic designer laid out the menu warnings as if they were an e. e. cummings poem for our menu.

Our long-format menu faded away as the chefs changed the menu so often that cutting and assembling a new booklet for each menu was driving servers into madness and misery, but our bathroom haiku are still there. The haiku still rotate whenever I remember that someone coming in to dine wrote one for us. For all the jokes about having someone’s name on the bathroom wall, it really is fun to have people see their words up there, and now and again someone leaves us a haiku on their check. Some of our favorites have been:

Cascading water
Over your hands – so calming,
So mandatory.
-Mindy Klenoff

Employees wash hands.
What a pleasant thought that is.
And also the law.
-Georg Lauer

Workers, wash your hands!
Release your stained, dirty past
And begin anew.
-Susan Crandall

Charm friends and lovers,
while following the health code.
Washing hands does both.
-Kevin Clark

Worker, joblessness
Is disharmonious, so
Wash hands with gladness.
-Alice Gorel

There are so many things to be said when running a restaurant, and having new voices is always welcome. This blog has been quiet for a while as I’ve worked on other things at Journeyman, but in the coming weeks, I hope to start having more staff members writing posts. If you want your name on the Journeyman walls, you can always write us a haiku or send in a question you’d like answered. The questions will be posted here, and the poetry will rotate across our bathroom walls.