Saveur

I wound through the valley of Rancho Santa Fe one chilly, foggy morning late last December, as the skies were turning that California-dawn palette of periwinkle and pink, toward Chino Nojo, the Chino family's farm. The Chinos are four siblings who have achieved a near-cultlike fame for growing perhaps the finest fruits and vegetables that can possibly be grown on their 50-acre plot just north of San Diego. I was headed there to take part in their annual mochi-tsuki, a Shinto celebration that begins the period of the New Year—and which, Tom Chino says, is an important part of life on this farm.

I parked and walked behind the Chinos' farm stand, officially (although rarely) called the Vegetable Shop, to a group of four simple structures, painted a muted, mustardy yellow and positioned around a courtyard in a formation that, in its simplicity and grace, looked entirely Japanese. Kay, Fred, and Frank Chino all live here. Hideo lives in San Diego with his wife, Sheridan Reed, and their two children, and although not involved with the business of the farm, he often stops by to visit. Tom lives nearby with his wife, Nina McConnel, and their 12-year-old son, Makoto, and arrives at the farm at 4 a.m. seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

I found the family in the courtyard, huddled around a fire in a galvanized tub over which flats of soaked rice were stacked, giving off the smells of sweet rice and redwood as they steamed. Makoto was sent to wake up "Alice", as she's known here—Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse. When Alice, sporting a purple knit beanie, arrived from the room the Chinos keep for her, Tom dumped the contents of the bottommost flat into the giant granite mortar, or usu, that sits permanently in the center of the courtyard, then handed Alice a long, heavy mallet called a kine. She lifted it up over her shoulder, swung it down onto the rice, and almost came down herself with the force of it. The group clapped. And the mochi-tsuki had begun.

When Hatsuyo and Junzo Chino bought this farm in 1952, they did not set out to grow famous vegetables. Even now, their children don't claim that their produce is the best. "But what we present to our customers," Tom does say, "is the best we can produce." The family humbly went about growing their museum-quality vegetables in obscurity until the late '70s, when a box of their green beans made its way 500 miles north to Berkeley and into the hands and mouth of the American chef most likely to get excited about a green bean. To this day Alice Waters recalls the moment wistfully. "They were straight little haricots verts," she says. "Just like the ones I had eaten in France…and delicious. It was love at first sight."

I grew up in San Diego, and in the 15 years since a friend first took me to the Chinos' as if it were a rite of passage, I've made a pilgrimage there every time I'm in town. It takes only one trip to the stand to see that something special is going on. The Chinos grow vegetables in shapes and colors that make you question what you're seeing: red and white carrots; a large cluster of light green turrets that turn out to be romanesco cauliflower. What's more, because of the Chinos' extensive knowledge and the total devotion with which they raise these things, even ordinary varieties of broccoli and radishes and squash look uncommonly fresh, dewy, and bright.

This article was first published in Saveur in Issue #63