06/15/2009

Fresh, Fragrant & Flavorful: College of Ag, Hotel Create Herb Garden for Restaurant

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme— they’re all there. So are basil, mint, oregano and chives, and a bit of lavender, too.

’Tis a cornucopia of aromatic herbs, flourishing against a backdrop of muscadine and scuppernong vines in a beautifully landscaped garden filled with the soothing sounds of a flowing fountain.

Most every morning from late spring through fall, John Hamme visits the delightful herb garden, scissors in his hand, and starts snipping, not stopping until his large wicker gathering basket is all but overflowing with a medley of fragrant herbs. Close your eyes, breathe in the aroma floating from that basket, and you could declare you’re feasting on authentic Italian cuisine in a ristorante in Roma.

You’re not, of course; you’re still in Auburn. But if you’ll simply follow Hamme and his herbs through the gate and around the corner a short distance, you’ll find an Italian trattoria, right in the heart of the Loveliest Village, inside The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center. Arricia is its name, and Hamme is its executive chef—the chef in charge of the restaurant’s 30 or so other chefs.

In Italy, it’s a culinary custom to use the freshest ingredients, and at Ariccia— named after the ancient town of Ariccia, Italy—Hamme honors that tradition, purchasing as many farm-fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and other ingredients as possible from producers across the state through community-supported- agriculture partnerships.

About four years ago, it dawned on Hans van der Reijden, managing director of operations at the Auburn University–owned hotel and conference facility, that, given the restaurant’s focus on freshness, Ariccia should have an on-site container herb garden, located in the luxury hotel’s pool area, where the chefs could gather herbs one minute and have them in the kitchen the next.

There was just one problem.

“Of course, the garden must be extremely attractive and healthy and well maintained at all times,” van der Reijden says, “but we have no gardeners on staff.”

This is where, in late 2006, the College of Agriculture entered the scene.

To set the stage, van der Reijden’s first task when he arrived in Auburn in 2003 was to work with the College of Human Sciences to incorporate the hotel is operating with the college’s academic program for hotel and restaurant management majors. The tremendous success of that joint venture inspired him to keep an eye open for opportunities to get involved with other colleges and schools across campus.

The obvious prospective collaborator on the herb garden project was the College of Ag’s horticulture department, and in fact, van der Reijden knew a horticulture department staff member who’s an avid gardener and grows, among other things, herbs.

That would be Cynthia Channell-Butcher, an academic program administrator in the department and long-time right-hand woman to horticulture professor James Brown. A few years back, van der Reijden met with a group of horticulture department faculty and staff to talk over the feasibility of establishing a completely student-managed vegetable garden that would grow seasonal produce for Ariccia. (Who would tend the garden during long semester breaks and other issues threw too many kinks into that plan.) Anyway, Channell-Butcher was in that group.

Channell-Butcher and husband Brad Butcher have a 50-acre Notasulga farm that includes an acre and a half of blueberries and five full acres of muscadine and scuppernong vines. Apparently, she inherited her great-grandmother’s grapevine-growing gene.

“She had a row of muscadine vines in her yard, and as soon as they started ripening, we’d pick them and she would make us a muscadine cobbler,” she says. “I always wanted to have my own vines one day.”

She and Butcher have been tending their vines since 1996. Muscadines and scuppernongs are high-maintenance, labor-intensive crops, but it’s always been just the two of them doing all the work: the tedious hand-pruning, the constant upkeep of the orchard grounds and the hand-cramping, timeconsuming handpicking—and these vines are prolific with a capital P. They handle the marketing, too, peddling the umpteen dozen crates of grapes to independent grocery stores in Lee, Macon, Tallapoosa and Montgomery counties.

As for Channell-Butcher’s herbs—and she has just about every kind under the sun—they grow vigorously in raised beds in her backyard. Nearly everything she cooks has a handful of fresh herbs thrown in.

Van der Reijden recalled Channell-Butcher’s interest in herb gardening and gave her a call to run his Ariccia herb garden idea, and his interest in partnering with the College of Ag, past her. She said to count her in, pending the approval of Ag Dean Richard Guthrie. Guthrie gave the project his blessings, as did horticulture department head Dave Williams, and the college pledged to go 50-50 with the The Hotel’s project budget.

Channell-Butcher’s first, and only, recruit to the project was Jane Hoehaver director of the college’s Plant Science Research Center. It would work like this: Hamme would specify the herbs to be grown, Hoehaver would get the plants started in a greenhouse at the center and Channell-Butcher would take things from there.

In spring 2007, Channell-Butcher planted the first crop of herbs, arranging them in large pots that sat a safe distance from the shallow end of the hotel pool. But even as those herbs were thriving and producing a plethora of herbs, plans for the garden were moving to a higher level.

That fall, van der Reijden brought in a landscape architect who designed a beauty of garden space, running the length of the brick wall parallel to the pool, filled with raised beds and enclosed by a knee-high wooden fence. When the garden was built, it was perfect. Well, almost perfect. The finishing touch, Channell-Butcher said, would be a beautiful fountain. That’s not in the budget, she was told. But it must have a fountain, she said. And where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Channell-Butcher lost her father, retired NASA engineer and 1963 Auburn alum Dewey Bowes Channell of Huntsville, in 2005.

“My two brothers and I had been looking for something really special we could do to honor Dad’s memory, so the three of us gave the garden its fountain,” she says. A plaque at the fountain’s base identifies it as a memorial to Channell, given by his three children. Now, Channell-Butcher says, the garden is perfect.

Another plaque, displayed by the wrought-iron gate to the pool area, notes that the herb garden is a collaborative project of the hotel and conference center, the College of Ag, the horticulture department and the plant research center.

In mid-April, Channell-Butcher and Hoehaver planted this year’s garden, and Hamme is harvesting fresh, fragrant herbs once again.

The garden does bear Channell-Butcher’s signature mark. The herbs grow against a backdrop of trellises, on which grow the vines—muscadine and scuppernong, of course. Whether muscadine pie and scuppernong wine will appear on Aricca’s menu remains to be seen.

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Contact: Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or creamjs@auburn.edu

OFFICE OF AG COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING
Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 COMER HALL, AUBURN UNIVERSITY
AUBURN, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)
AgComm@auburn.edu