If you’ve ever wondered what you would get if you matched an almost 100-year-old purveyor of caviar with a talented young chef, then a trip to Petrossian West Hollywood is in order. Chef Giselle Wellman has not only developed new ways to enjoy caviar -- with dishes such as a salad that uses butter lettuce instead of blinis with caviar, crème-fraiche-dill-lemon dressing, shallots, chives and hard-boiled egg (pictured left) -- but she has also started saving seeds for a small kitchen garden in the alley behind the restaurant.

Although the Petrossian signature menu, which includes faves such as the Egg Royal and high-end splurges such as the Tsar Imperial Caviar Trio ($390), does not change, the rest of the menu changes seasonally to get the most out of local produce. With asparagus season just around the corner, Chef Giselle was kind enough to share her recipe for a particularly yummy asparagus soup (which, as you can see from the photo below, pairs well with Petrossian's hibiscus champagne). Enjoy!

In an attempt to cater to the increasing variety of dietary concerns and requests from its guests – from gluten free to macrobiotic to vegan -- Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has launched a new culinary program called Lifestyle Cuisine Plus. Through the program, Fairmont chefs are given additional training and on-site software that analyzes nutrition content, and then encouraged to create dishes appropriate for their particular destination. Most Fairmont hotels already offer farm-to-table cuisine (many from their own kitchen gardens and bee hives) so the new program – the “plus” if you will – is the addition of health and wellness benefits to the seasonal, local fare already in place.

As an example of one of the new menu options, here is a recipe for vegan curry chick pea couscous from The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. Others can be found on Fairmont's Everyone's An Original site. Enjoy!

A childhood in Costa Rica surrounded by farms helped form Chef Andres Jimenez's passion for local, seasonal, sustainable and organic products. It's a passion he's been able to share with others as the executive chef at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel. Not only does Chef Andres partner with local farms that include Maggie Farms, Tuti Fruti, Gloria Farms, VR Farms and Aqua Farms (for mussels, clams and oysters) but he regularly takes guests on tours of the resort's own herb garden, put in last year as part of the Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ambassadors of the Environment program. Here is a short video with Chef Andres in the garden talking about how to work with the herbs rosemary, parsley, sage and thyme.  

In a recent cooking demonstration at the resort (on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean no less), Chef Andres shared with us this recipe for pomegranate and bulgur wheat salad (click "read more" for recipe), which is as delicious as it is healthy -- not to mention garden-friendly. He also left us with this nifty tip: If you want to illustrate the importance of buying organic, just taste the difference it makes in butter. 

Located at the Aloha Tower Marketplace on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, Chai's Island Bistro is a haven for local talent. This is true both on the stage (where local entertainment is featured nightly) and in the kitchen, where produce from local farms is featured in Hawaii Regional Cuisine influenced by Chef/Owner Chai Chaowasaree's native Thailand. Chef Chai works closely with local farmers at Nalo Farms and Aloun Farms. He also helped found Hawaiian Island Chefs, an organization whose mission is to promote agriculture and aquaculture in Hawaii and to help promote academic scholarships in the culinary arts. 

For those who can't get to Oahu and would like to learn more about Chef Chai's cooking -- or try it themselves at home -- his cookbook, "The Island Bistro Cookbook," is a great place to start. Below is one of the recipes. According to Chef Chai, "This is one of the easiest dishes to make. You don't have to follow the recipe exactly and you can substitute pork or anything else. You can stir-fry it any way you want and make it as fancy or simple as you like. It depends on how much you want to show off for your dinner guests!"