Sukey will be the moderator and John a guest panelist on artisinal products at the National Conference of Women Chefs and Restauranteurs in Newport, Rhode Island, November 3-5, 2007.

For more information on the master class read on or go to www.womenchefs.org

Monday, November 5, 2007 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Master Classes: Session III Sponsored by Chef Designs

MC09 - Artisanal Products: Inspire Your Menus With Change in the Seasons

Sukey Jamison - Moderator
Co-Owner, Jamison Farm

Adeline Folley
Operations Manager, Vermont Butter & Cheese Company

John Jamison
Co-Owner, Jamison Farm

Anne Quatrano
Chef/Owner, Bacchanalia, Floataway Café, Quinones,
Star Provisions

Taste the difference! This panel will illustrate the difference between small artisan products and the common mass produced varieties. While you savor the flavors, see if you can taste the difference. Come discover the pros and cons of dealing with small producers vs. major food service suppliers.

Picture Perfect

By Karen Becket and Ann Haigh
For the Tribune-Review
Monday, August 6, 2007

Ewe knew it!

When Sukey and John Jamison host a party at their famed Latrobe sheep farm, it’s sure to be sumptuous supping and sipping. And the Bastille Day event, benefiting the Jean-Louis Palladin Foundation, certainly raised the roof on raves.

Visiting celebrity chefs corralled the kitchen: Bill Telepan, of Telepan’s, NYC; Jimmy Sneed, of Richmond Virginia; and Chris Jackson, of Pittsburgh’s Six Penn Kitchen, were ably assisted by chef Evan Danko, cousin of San Fran’s finest Gary Danko; and Chef Erica Wides, a recent JLP Foundation intern at the farm.

Guests grazed on tubs of fois gras, buckets of soft-shell crab, exotic cheeses, serious fine wines — and, of course, platter after platter of the Jamisons' divine, all-natural lamb.

The foundation, headquartered in Bethesda, Md., honors the late France-born chef, Jean-Louis Palladin, promoting his mission of pursuing fine products and mentoring talent in his adopted USA.

Members of the Board, a who’s who of culinary stardom, came from across the country — including Foundation Director Ann Brody Cove, of Bethesda, and incoming president Clint Arthur, of Five Star Butter, Los Angeles.

Others feeding on the sensational spread: Carrie Jackson; Leah Telepan; Red Room chef Chris Bonfili and wife Jen; Eat ’n Park’s Mark Broadhurst; Mountain View Inn’s Vance Booher; Latrobe Country Club’s Jerry Palmer; and from Ligonier: Dr. Dan Vittone, Jim and Carrie Cooper and Joann & Bob Lightcap.

— Ann Haigh

Taken from http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/search/s_520767.html

Madelyn's Restaurant & Wine Bar opened last month to the delight of Anthemites and residents all over the North Valley.

Learn More >>

Picnic at Jamison Farm for Jean Loius Palladin Foundation.

Prep in Sukey's Kitchen: Jimmy Sneed & Evan Danko

Our Three Star Chefs at the event: Jimmy Sneed, Chris Jackson & Bill Telepan

"Ten to fifteen years ago, we couldn't sell lamb shanks. Now we can't keep them," reports supplier John Jamison.
More (PDF 411 KB)

We walked on to an outside door. We were outside the garage now in a small alcove which housed a dumpster and a walkin cooler. Across from the cooler was a door which we figured opened into the kitchen. Standing outside in the dark at 10:00 pm on a Friday night with three lambs on our backs, Sukey knocked on the door with her one free hand. Within seconds, the door flew open. His hand still attached to the door seemingly deciding whether to open or close it, an impeccably dressed gentlemen asked in a French accent, “May I help You?” His manner impressed me as I figured he had just filled a glass of wine for Jackie Onassis and now was suavely trying to find out what these two people with three lamb carcasses were doing outside his door.

Thinking all this was now pretty cool, I tried my High School French and told him that we had “trios agneau” for the chef. With a nod and a few words in French from the Maitre’D, a cook ran in to take the lamb off Sukey’s back. Then he said, “Ah Oui, Chef has been waiting for you, please come in.” As I stumbled sideways through the door trying to negotiate my way into the kitchen dodging waiters, cooks and dishwashers, the sea of white jackets opened and someone said, “Let me take it”.

Taking one lamb off my shoulder was a tall bespeckled character with a friendly air about him. He looked about my age. He was dressed in a Chef’s Jacket, Jordache Jeans and Reeboks. He motioned to someone and another cook ran in and took the other lamb. He turned around, lamb in his arms, motioning to the staff to follow him. They circled around him as he carried the lamb to a stainless steel work table.

Sukey and I stayed back partly out of respect and partly to be out of the line of fire should there be a problem. All I could see was the tall chef with the S.O.S. hair opening the paper and wildly waving his arms. What I could hear was a lot of Gallic expressions which meant nothing to me emanating from his deep Gascone voice. I said to Sukey, “ This is either very bad or very good.” He motioned for us to join him.

I noticed his eyes were moist. He said, “ I am so happy to meet you. You have to excuse me because these lambs are so beautiful. They remind me of the ones I bought when I was an apprentice. These are a souvenir of my youth.”

— from a work in progress called Coyotes in the Pasture & Wolves at the Door by John Jamison This event took place in the late 1980’s a time long before world wide web access to knowledge. So we didn’t really know much about what we were getting into! In addition, the food revolution of the chef to farmer connection that is so common place today had barely gotten off the ground. It was Jean-Louis Palladin on the east coast and Alice Waters on the west coast who were the pioneers behind this current movement.

Hey guys, I just wanted to tell you how awesome your lamb is and what a great job you do! I hosted a slow food dinner here with another local farmer and every single person raved about your lamb racks. Thank you so much for working with me and I just wanted to drop you a note to say how great your lamb is. You all do an amazing job and it really shows,
thank you,

Mark Mendez, Carnivale Restaurant

News about Jamison Farm in Latrobe, Pennsylvania

View Older Lamb's Tales
 

Even though spring does not arrive officially until the vernal equinox on March 20, jump ahead now and grasp the opportunity to enjoy delicious, succulent grilled lamb with red wines.

To read the entire article
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/s_615395.html

For family proprietors Dan, David and Laureen Barber, Blue Hill is the name both for their two restaurants, and for the farm that inspired them.

"I used to walk up Blue Hill Road every week, for years; sometimes everyday. I loved Blue Hill Farm more than anything in the world.

"Back then it was a dairy run by two brothers. What a mess! They had cows pasturing in the front yard, for god's sake... And the barn and house were run-down and so dirty I couldn't believe it. And you know what? I loved it. I loved the open pastures, I loved the backdrop of blue hills, I loved that I felt like a queen every time I came up here.

"But whenever I told the brothers I wanted to buy the farm, they just laughed. ‘Lady,' they'd say, ‘This farm has been in our family for three generations. We're never selling.'

"I'd return the next week, and they'd say the same thing. ‘Never selling.' This went on for years.

"Then one day I arrived at the top of the hill and one of the brothers came running over to me. ‘Ma'am, do you still want to buy this farm?' I couldn't believe it. He didn't even let me answer. ‘My brother and I have gotten into the biggest fight. If we don't sell it now we're going to kill each other.' I told them I was interested. ‘Ma'am,' he said, ‘we're selling it now, or forget it. Right now.'

"So I said yes. I hadn't even been inside the farmhouse, and I didn't know where the property began and where it ended. But it didn't matter. I just knew this was the place."

~Ann Strauss,
as told to her grandchildren
David and Dan Barber

My wife, Sukey, and I were attending an Institute of Culinary Professionals conference in Philadelphia in 1996 and had just walked across the large convention space to climb the stairs to the elevator. There she stood, seemingly somewhat embarrassed by the throng of fans wanting to ask her questions. Julia Child had forgotten she was in a public place.

Sukey walked up to her with a sense of familiarity to ask her how she liked the lamb we had sent her for Easter. Somewhat relieved to be looking at a recognizable face, Julia sweetly turned to Sukey and answered in her unmistakable voluminous voice, "Well, dear, it was very tasty, but rather tough." This prompted an immediate change in the operation of our newly purchased USDA meat plant as well as an almost continual discussion with Julia lasting for years about various procedures of meat processing in this country.

For all her icon status, Julia was a student. She loved the food business. She felt much more at ease with people who were in what she referred to in a note to my daughter, Eliza, who is now a chef, as "the best profession."

Indeed, the last time we saw Julia, in October 2001, we visited her kitchen in Cambridge, Mass., to have coffee and "commune," as she put it. We discussed aging methods of meat, the current status of culinary education, which restaurants were good and, if I remember correctly, general juicy gossip about the vagaries of various chefs. But it always got back to who's cooking what and how.

After a half hour of this great conversation, my dutiful wife asked her where the coffeemaker was. She looked at Sukey and said, "I don't know where that equipment is. But I do have a lovely bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, which we opened last night. We mustn't let it go."

Julia stood up, grasping my arm with a vice-like grip and guided me into the famous pantry where her husband, Paul, had hung a diagram of his wine cellar showing what was where and what had been consumed.

She directed me to the glasses she wanted and, with offers of help from everyone present, poured the wine for the five guests.

So there I was, having Julia Child pour me a white Rhone wine at 10:30 a.m. on a gray October morning in Massachusetts.

Life could be worse!

Jamison's Easter Lamb

This is a recipe inspired by Julia Child's book, "The Way to Cook" (Knopf, 1989) that we use for our Easter dinner every year. This is how Mrs. Child always cooked her lamb.

• 1 leg of Jamison lamb (semi-boneless), approximately 4 1/2 to 5 pounds
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons Dijon-style mustard
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon crushed thyme or rosemary
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• Salt and coarse-ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Place leg in roasting pan. Mix remaining ingredients in mini-size food processor and blend to make paste. Rub paste over leg. Allow to season for 30 minutes at room temperature while preheating oven.

Roast leg for approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. Raise temperature to 425 degrees, with lamb remaining in oven, and finish roasting for another 15 to 25 minutes, depending on desired doneness. (We aim for 130 to 135 degrees, slightly below the oft-recommended 140.)

Remove from oven and let roast rest for at least 15 minutes before carving.

-- John Jamison

Don't forget Easter is April 12, 2009

We will be visiting Giant Eagle stores March 28 in South HIlls and Shadyside in Pittsburgh.

We will be in Cleveland at Lolita Restaurant for Farmers dinner with Jamison Lamb on April 22, 2009.

Visiting daughter & family in Pittsburgh. Today we went on a tour of local farms supplying provisions as organized by

PASA - Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable

(We happened to be here last year to catch the first such tour, so we knew it was Fun For Foodies.)

We visited the Jamison Farm, where John and Sukey have raised grass-fed lamb for over 20 years.

Jamison Farm | Taste the Lamb the World's Greatest Chefs Call "America's Best"

They are evidently pretty well-known in professional food/restaurant circles (he mentioned Charlie Trotter and also a restaurant in NYC that they supply with 100 racks per week; also unspecified places in Vegas.) They have their own USDA packing plant in nearby Greensburg, and ship anywhere.

Their farm is a modest place up the side of a small mountain near Latrobe. That's not unususal - everything is up the side of a small mountain areound here.

They're both down-to-earth, and John was kind enough to have his sheep dog run a small flock past his visitors a couple of times. God knows how much weight they ran off- that dog moved them along pretty fast.

Nicko- I advised John Jamison (I used to run a consulting company, so I'm more than willing to offer advice) to look into advertising on this site, so I will expect an appropriate commission if something happens.

Anyway, we came back with a butterflied leg and some ground lamb. I'll report on the results when we prepare them.

We love to visit Pittsburgh, now that the steel mills are gone. My youngest son, then a dealer in industrial valves, helped to tear down several of them to salvage and rebuild the valves. There are a LOT of valves involved in steelmaking, in addition to the more spectacular furnaces.

So far, we've spent our time shopping for food, prowling the Strip - an ultre-funky district of restaurants and food and provision shops - and eating in nice restaurants. They've educated their two daughters - 14 and 11 - to appreciate the finer things in life, usually available only in upscale restaurants. It seems to me a really shortsighted approach to child rearing.

Mike
__________________
travelling gourmand

Read Original Article

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This is a picture from Legume Restaurant in Pittsburgh, PA. Trevett is the chef and he arranged a farm dinner with our lamb Feb 22, 2009. Shown here are frenched racks that he prepared for the dinner.

Congratulations on winning a 2009 Edible Communities Local Hero Award, chosen by the readers of Edible Allegheny magazine. You are invited to a lunch to celebrate at Six Penn Kitchen (146 6th St., Downtown) this Thursday, February 26 at 1 p.m with the four other honorees and members of the Edible staff. We look forward to dining with you and thank you for your commitment to our sustainable community.

• Beverage Artisan: Boyd & Blair Vodka
• Food Artisan: Steve Salvi, FEDE Pasta
• Chef/Restaurant: Keith Fuller, Six Penn Kitchen
• Farm: Jamison Farm
• Non-Profit Organization: Milestone Speciality Produce

Diverse Menu Adds to the Flavor of
South Greensburg Restaurant

VARIETY FARE
Thursday, July 24, 2008
By China Millman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Read the Article

Thursday, July 17, 2008
By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Read the Article

Buy Fresh Buy Local^® Summer Farm Tour
Saturday, July 26th, 2008 12:00 p.m. — 5:00 p.m.
Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland and nearby Counties

View the Press Release
(PDF || 105 KB)

John and Sukey Jamison are not sheepish about sharing their passion for lamb. Call these proprietors of Jamison Farm in Latrobe "accidental farms," or, as Sukey more precisely puts it, "providential lamb produers. "It's weird," she says, "how one thing leads to another."

And so things did. In 1976, looking for an old country house, they bought one that incidentally came with a 65-acre farm -- perfect for grazing a few sheep to support Sukey's small catering business. In 1985, with an increasing herd size and hard-earned lamb-raising experience, they relocated to their current 210-acre farm.

Today, Jamison Farm processes about 5,000 animals a year, providing meat and prepared foods to both retail customers and top chefs coast to coast. Not suprisingly, David Kamp singles out this "boutique purveyor of natural lamb" in his recently published "The Food S nob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Gastronomical Knowledge."

John and Sukey regularly attract publicity raves. But it wasn't always so. In the early years of their business, lamb was not an easy sell in America. A turning point came in 1987 when the late, great, France-born chef Jean-Louis Palladin tasted and fell in love with their lamb. He spread the word, and soon other star chefs placed orders. Jamison's client roster grew to include such chef luminaries as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Daniel Boulud, Terrance Brennan, Eric Ripert, Bill Telepan, Frank Stitt, Dan Barber...and the list goes on. Intermingling with so many unique and talented personalities, the Jamisons' vibrant life yields as many tales as tails.

Sukey recalls working with Jean-Louis on his Mama's Stew recipe, designed to utilize lamb shoulder, the secret ingredient turned out to be V-8 juice. Perfectly mimicking Jean-Lou is' accent, John describes one of the chef's visits to the farm. Surveying the flocks, Jean-Louis asked: "How many mommies are there?" "400," John replied "How many daddies?" Four. Whistling, Jean-Louis registered an "Ooh-la-la!"

The Jamisons also have stories about their friend, the late Julia Child,who once, when she couldn't locate her coffee-making equipment served them a Chateaunef-du-Pape wine for a 10:30 a.m. breakfast. And they've had endless odd or difficult requests -- Alain Ducasse wanting a particular lamb's neck muscle for a dish; Mario Batali needing 400 to 500 lamb's tounges per week for his famous salad.

"Artisinal," "all-natural" and sustainable" before the terms became fashionable, Jamison Farm is a true agricultural and culinary icon. Reared free of herbicides, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, pastured sheep and lambs roam outdoors, munching bluegrass and white clover all year long. Only in frigid winter, when nothings grows, are they hand-fed hay and corn. Grass-fed lamb tastes like lamb, John explains. Corn-fed lamb tastes more like beef.

The farm is Certified Humane, meaning the animals are treated well from their moment of arrival until their ultimate departure at the nearby Jamison-owned USDA-inspected processing plant. As John paraphrases the adage: "A happy lamb is a tender lamb."

The Jamisons diligently manage all business details, while maintaining a remarkably generous spirit. Both happily reflect on America's fresh appreciation of lamb."Twenty years ago I couldn't sell a lamb shank," explains John. "Now I can't keep up with the demand."

Chef Frank Stitt's Bottega restaurant in Birmingham, Ala., embodies a Renaissance Italy spirit and work ethic in creating terrific Italian-inspired food and wine experiences. The master chef, culinary team and waitstaff have enthralled appreciative locals and visitors alike since 1988.

To read the entire article, click here: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/search/s_574359.html

Restaurant in a League of Its Own

South Greensburg's Spitfire Grille, a small restaurant-bar with a patio, carves out a niche with a commitment to seasonal fare.

To read the entire article, click here: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_574554.html

Meet John and Sukey Jamison

The June 21 dinner at Jamison Farm, which benefits Jean-Louis Palladin Foundtion, has been cancelled. Stay posted here for the next Jamison Farm event.

Artisinal Products Class in Newport, RI