Katherine Stern is the owner and operating consciousness behind the Midway, a seasonal farm to table restaurant in Santa Cruz, CA. I worked in the Midway kitchen for several years from 2020-2023 when it existed as a weekly brunch booth at the farmers market and then as a restaurant residency at Bad Animal books while Katherine sought out a permanent location.
During my years at the Midway, Katherine and I talked a lot about branding and “anti-branding”, ways to resist the fetishization of terms like “local” or “seasonal” used to describe common sense good cooking… “It's just food!” she would exclaim. Of course it is, but it's also a personal history shaping a unique relationship to place and community through food, and that was something I sought to subtly capture for her.
Santa Cruz and California more generally is of course a haven of agricultural excesses. The summer farmers markets are a kaleidoscopic vertigo of heirloom tomatoes and stone fruit, jimmy nardello peppers, and japanese eggplants, all arching and plunging in an almost absurd exhibition of abundance. I always enjoyed seeing what Katherine came back to the kitchen with, her menu plans constantly reorganizing around the perfect kumquat or an unexpected flush of wild mushrooms. She’s so fluent in her craft that she can be utterly responsive to the most vital and exciting new ingredients available. In this sense, a meal at the Midway represents a sort of regional education, shifting strategies for combining locally sourced ingredients that may fall outside the home chefs regular purview: Halibut crudo with shizo leaves and green gage plums… excuse me… radicchio salad with celery root, whipped ricotta and pears… I could go on and on. .
In 2023 Katherine found her location in the historic Rio Theatre building in Midtown Santa Cruz. Together we decided on four tall paintings, each showcasing a different tree, and each tree representing a season. I wanted to quietly emphasize the connection to local growers and the commitment to seasonal dining by featuring local trees and growers. In choosing my own subjects I was also interested in showcasing pruning strategies, which could easily become its own very rich ongoing series. Fall apples feature a tree from Freddy and Ellen’s (Epicenter Nursery) orchard in Watsonville. The persimmon tree is from the Seabright neighborhood close to my studio, from which I harvest and process Hoshigaki (dried and massaged persimmon) each winter. Spring features a blossoming nectarine from Camp Joy Gardens in Boulder Creek, and summer a hybrid fig grafted together from images taken at Knoll Farm in Brentwood, Freddy’s defoliated fig tree, and a fully leafed Mediterranean specimen I saw years ago in Greece. I justify the presence of the Mediterranean fig as a nod to Katherine’s years of culinary training and practice in Italy, and because I was representing figs out of season.
The paintings are acrylic over plaster-primed reinforced plywood, encircling diners in a shifting seasonal grove.
