Green, before it was sexy

Los Gatos, Calif. — IN an early spring garden tucked into the Santa Cruz Mountains, Alain Passard knelt beside a patch of young Chinese cabbage, carefully rubbing the leaves between his fingers. He made his way through the garden, stopped next to some red mustard and plucked a leaf to taste, then some sorrel, then the yellow bud of flowering Chinese broccoli, and the thick, dewy leaf of ficoide glaciale, a salad plant whose succulent leaves are covered with minuscule silver dots so that it looks as if it's covered in fine frost.

Passard, the chef of L'Arpege in Paris who six years ago made what was considered a revolutionary move by publicly declaring that his Michelin three-star restaurant would shift its focus from his signature meat dishes to vegetables, came to California last weekend to cook dinner with chef David Kinch at Manresa in Los Gatos and to visit Kinch's garden.

"I've been a big fan of L'Arpege for 20 years," said Kinch. "The first time I went was an eye-opening experience, and every few years I've seen how his food has changed." He said he sought a collaboration because Passard's restaurant gardens were an inspiration for his own. The dinners took place over three nights, with each chef creating four of eight courses.

"We talked about what was in the garden and what we would plant for the dinner and hoped the specialness of the vegetables speak for themselves," Kinch said.

Passard agreed, explaining, "I knew we shared a profound respect for the provenance of ingredients."

Passard has set up two potagers, or kitchen gardens, on several acres in Normandy and Brittany, where he's from. The properties provide all of the vegetables, transported by high-speed train, for the restaurant in Paris. Passard said he recently purchased another property near Mont St. Michel. "If I didn't have my gardens, I would no longer love to cook," he said.

More than a year ago, Kinch set up his own potager at Love Apple Farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, run by grower Cynthia Sandberg. Now he says there are 45 vegetables and herbs in the ground with more on the way.

Kinch picked up armloads of vegetables for dinner -- white beets, turnips, rutabagas, baby carrots, baby leeks, mache and tiny breakfast radishes with their tendril roots that grow in the new hoop house among the kohlrabi, peas and "freckles" lettuce.