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Scratch Farm Kitchen owner and chef Jamie Herson joins Discover Lafayette to create delicious combinations of the highest quality, freshest, locally sourced ingredients tailored to the needs of guests' dietary preferences and restrictions. sharing her commitment to providing.
Scratch Farm Kitchen, located at 2918 Johnston St. in the Wynwood Shopping Center, is attracting a growing number of devotees who flock to see the daily menu, which features the day's meals on a board next to the cash register. Popular menu items such as hash-based bowls, grit-based bowls, burgers, and special dishes known as boudini, which are biscuits topped with boudin, cheese, eggs, pesto, kimchi, and Jamie's homemade mayonnaise, are always in high demand.
Jamie and her dedicated staff prepare all the condiments offered at Scratch from scratch, including their own ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, cheese, jams, and soups. They salt their own meat and ferment products such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and soda. The meals are colorful, simple yet fun, and a testament to the virtues of eating fresh, local, healthy food, handcrafted with love.
“The best way to describe my cooking is to say it's inspired by street food. It started with an outdoor grill. It's farm-to-table American cuisine. I would like to say that the food is transparent and honest. It's clean and simple food. As Julia Child said, “The food is a masterpiece. It doesn't have to be. It just needs to be simple and have good ingredients,” says Jamie Herson.
Jamie is responsible for all menu selections, creates the dishes served and prepares the soups himself. She credits her talented staff for supporting her vision. I have a passionate and dedicated team that I can rely on. I walk every day and that's where I want to be. And our customers inspire me. ”
“The Scratch Farm Kitchen operates solely on the grill, with no fryers or ovens. Everything is fresh and assembled on a line in front of the restaurant, with all prep work done in the back kitchen. The menu features locally sourced ingredients. And the menu is a learning process from years of experience. “If it doesn't sell, it goes off the menu,” says Jamie.
Jamie's journey into the food business began at an early age helping out on his grandfather's farm in Dewson. Picking blackberries and figs, pecans on my hands and knees, and peeling corn is typically eight hours a day. These were actually not her favorite activities. But it led her to appreciate the seasonal aspects of her local food.
After her grandfather passed away when Jamie was 8 years old, she distanced herself from the idea of farming until she had a dream at 18. Jamie said, “I was in Portland, Oregon, and I had a picture of a farm in my head, and I called my dad (former District Attorney Mike Herson) about it, and he said, “You. You dream of a family farm?'' Jamie knew he would return there someday.
She did not return to our area until she was 30 years old, at which time she called her father and said she was ready to go out again to the family farm in Du Son. She began raising hundreds of pigs, chickens, ducks, goats, and other livestock with her family (now four children) on the farm, which she named the “Bon Temps Family Farm.” Jamie has no experience in farming or ranching, and says he learned everything from Google.
Her passion from the beginning was “starting from scratch.” Jamie said, “If you're going to raise chickens, start when they're young.''
Jamie drove home to Duson's Ridgefield farm one day to find all of his 300-plus pigs on the loose when he saw too many state police outside his property. I jokingly recalled the time I saw the official. She wondered what was going on??She had just started from scratch and was still breeding, raising, and roasting her own pigs. “The pigs came out every day.” When state police asked what they could do to round up the pigs, Jamie knew they could bring them back to the pen with food. Imagine hundreds of pigs running, jumping, and celebrating going home. As a side note, raising, breeding, and roasting pigs took a toll on Jamie, and one day she realized she couldn't continue raising pigs while building her restaurant business. Once she let go of that part of the business, Scratch Farm Kitchen really took off.
Jamie had always “imagined having breakfast at Dewson's Farm, a little drive sir that could serve egg biscuits and coffee. That was the beginning of the Scratch dream.”
Jamie's ex-partner, Kelsey Ledger, wanted to help and helped make that dream a reality. She has her experience in the restaurant business and wanted more of her hands-on experience with farm-to-table movement. And Jamie wanted to put farm-to-table food on people's tables.
Scratch started by hosting private dinners for 40 people. “We consume large amounts of seasonal bounty, just like in the old days. What do you do when you get three bags of corn? You can pickle it, make corn muck choux or corn soup, or freeze it. Here's how to make Scratch: What do you do with 30 pounds of cucumbers? Basically, build a pantry as if you were living on the land. Let's trade with our neighbors. I love the interaction between the producers, the families.”
From humble beginnings as a pop-up at the Moncus Park Farmers Market to operating a food truck
scratch farm kitchen
2918 Johnston St., Lafayette
337-295-4769
@scratch_that_midcity
