Pitchin' In

The Annapolis Valley is one of the best areas in Canada for growing fruit, especially apples. Chef Lynn travels there to harvest some of the oldest species of apples in Canada.

Chef Lynn travels to the artichoke capitol of North America to work with a third generation artichoke farmer. She even gets to try some artichoke muffins.

Chef Lynn finds herself up a tree confronting her fear of heights once again.  This time, she’s fired on the job.

Chef Lynn gets one-on-one with free run pasture raised hens  and discovers there is no turning back once she experiences how superior their eggs are  for cooking and baking.

 The sweetest, most prized onion of all is the Vidalia, and Chef Lynn is willing to suffer to harvest them for the perfect French onion soup.

A lot of people think pheasant is fancy, but in Southern, Alberta, lots of folks grow up eating it. Chef Lynn finds out how tough and sneaky they are to catch.

Chinook salmon is prized for its meaty and rich flesh. Now it’s being farmed sustainably on Vancouver Island. But it’s a wet and cold business, as Chef Lynn finds out.

Plump, juicy strawberries  grow low to the ground, so Chef Lynn finds out it’s back breaking work to harvest the best. But these gorgeous berries inspire her to create a mouth-watering brunch.

Summer sweet corn and seafood is a match made in heaven for Chef Lynn. So she’s willing to do whatever it takes to harvest some of the finest in the country.

Chef Lynn is on a mission to prove that you can use sweet potatoes in more than pies and sweet side dishes. So she travels to Tennessee where some of the best are grown.

Baked, Smoked, Grilled, fresh trout is one of Chef Lynn’s favorites. But she  never imagined she’d need to play hockey to find out how the locals  enjoy it  in Thornbury, Ontario.

Watermelon says summer. But , as Chef Lynn discovers, harvesting them in the heat is tougher than a full workout at the gym with medicine balls.

Plentiful and native to The Great Lakes, whitefish is caught in Georgian Bay right into the winter, when Chef Lynn decides she’s brave enough to endure  the job.

For a few weeks early every summer, Central Michigan goes nuts for Asparagus. The area’s sandy soil makes it ideal for this delicious vegetable. But the locals do more than celebrate it; they revere it—and even crown a local Mrs. Asparagus at a pageant. Will it be Chef Lynn?

In the highlands of Nevada, Lynn’s longtime dream to live like a true cowgirl comes true. Here the special “Buckaroo” subculture will put Lynn to the test driving, corralling and branding.

Recently, a group of Ontario farmers have become some of the only farmers outside of Italy to raise Water Buffalo for their prized milk, and a local creamery is making it into Buffalo Mozzarella. Lynn is delighted to work with this ingredient, but intrigued to find out more about these charismatic animals.

This Middle Eastern delicacy is harvested under the hot California sun which proves to be the biggest obstacle for Chef Lynn getting her hands on some of the finest figs she’s ever seen.

The iconic Canadian ingredient is relegated to desert and breakfast. Lynn has never seen it harvested and is anxious to experiment with it in savory dishes.

Peaches are summer and when they are good they are great. But they grow in hot, dry climates and harvesting them is a sticky mess.

The king of Canadian freshwater fish and the star of many of Lynn’s menus, pickerel is tough to fish commercially—as Lynn will find out, and its delicate flesh needs a light touch!

Most people think a pumpkin is a pumpkin and enjoy them on holidays. But in rural Illinois, they grow more than 50 varieties and Chef Lynn is anxious to showcase them in every course of her dinner.

Rice feeds the world but there is nothing pleasant about the way it’s farmed, especially in the Mississippi heat and humidity. But Chef Lynn wants to see how it’s done.

These berries are a prairie treasure and every one in Saskatchewan and Alberta has a secret recipe for Saskatoon berry jam or pie that Lynn can’t wait to taste.

The pristine waters off Vancouver Island produce some of the finest seafood in the world, including scallops, long a favorite of Chef Lynn. But harvesting them is work for strong young men, as she finds out the hard way.

Almost all snapper is overfished, but Florida yellow snapper is abundant and sustainably harvested with a delicious buttery flesh and flavor. It’s considered one of the finest fish in the world and fishing for it holds some major challenges for our intrepid chef.

Avocado is almost always served as an appetizer or used to enhance a dish. But Chef Lynn decides she wants to make it the star of a meal. Turns out the farmer she meets is a retired army officer and puts her through a serious avocado boot camp.

Cloudberrires or Bake Apples, as they are called in Newfoundland, can fetch up to $60 a gallon, because they are so rare and so tasty. But Chef Lynn has to battle her fear of heights to gather enough of them for a meal that celebrates the local tradition of living off the land.

Bison was once almost extinct. But a small group of ranchers have worked to bring them back and now bison is becoming a popular more healthy alternative to beef. But these majestic creatures are raised almost wild, and Chef Lynn has to come face to face with her fears when she has to handle them.

Farmed fish is the way of the future, so Chef Lynn decides to check out the classic fish in Southern cuisine.

Chef Lynn loves a roast chicken—now she’s found heritage French birds that taste the way chicken used to taste. But raising them is hard and dirty work, and even requires Chef Lynn to sleep overnight with 5000 baby chicks.

Chef Lynn will admit that she prefers Crab to any other seafood—including Lobster. So she’s thrilled to go out on the open waters off Vancouver Island to haul in trap after trap of the finest Dungeness Crab in the world. Tipping her toque to her asian mentors, she prepares a Cantonese inspired crab for her final meal

Chef Lynn loves to quote Julia Child, who used to say: “If you don’t want to use butter, use cream”. As far as Lynn is concerned, life would be empty without dairy fat, so she’s found an organic farmer in Minnesota who produces some of America’s finest-His pride and joy is his 43% cream. Dairy is produced 365 years a year, so Lynn suffers in the cold of late winter to experience how the best is produced.

The clear and clean waters around Prince Edward Island are home to some of the best shellfish in the world, especially mussels. They are great just steamed in their own juices or with white wine. But Chef Lynn can’t wait to get her hands to show the locals how much she can do with them.

According to Chef Lynn, “ a day without a potato is like a day without sunshine”. So she’s keen to get down and dirty to dig up a variety of heirloom potatoes in Alberta. Trouble is, it’s all about operating heavy and dangerous machinery, and that freaks her out.

Squid fishing is highly competitive and the people who do it are hard core. But that doesn’t stop the intrepid Chef Lynn. Battling the cold and the darkness, Lynn goes out for an all-night adventure.

Perth County in Southwestern Ontario is famous for some of the best pork in Canada. But it’s also home to one of only a handful of farmer’s who are raising Wild Boar. Inspired by the possibilities, Lynn has a local butcher prepare wild boar bacon for her.

Most people think cranberries are for holiday meals or maybe for juice to go into cocktails. But Chef Lynn wants to see how many ways she can use them in an autumn brunch. But first she has to earn her keep, knee deep in the wet bogs where cranberries are grown.

Chef Lynn wants more than anything else to live the Cajun life for a day and gets herself invited to go crawfishing. She battles the bugs and the mud, but her biggest obstacle to fitting in turns out to be figuring out how to cook for the locals, who hate vegetables.

Chef Lynn is blown away by the scenery in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, but over the moon when she tastes the local artisanal goat cheese. She needs to know how it’s produced—from start to finish and is put to work milking and feeding goats. It’s a long way from Fifth Avenue!

Chef Lynn likes nothing more than pork and picks one of America’s top heritage hog farmers to explore what it takes to raise the perfect pig. It’s nasty and dirty work that has Lynn shoveling poop and chasing sows. On a side trip, she discovers the secrets of southern barbeque and realizes she’s up against it if she expects to impress the locals when she cooks for them.

Chef Lynn has long been a fan of Ontario-raised lamb but has never seen a lamb or sheep close up. She also has no idea of the brute strength required to shear a sheep or trim their toe nails, and finds out the hard way. Like many North Americans, her hosts are used to eating their lamb well-done. But Chef Lynn is on a mission to change that.

Chef Lynn is invited to go lobster fishing on The Bay of Fundy, where some of the finest lobster in the world is caught. It’s backbreaking work and Lynn is totally out of her element. At the Four Seasons in New York, she had a $1000 omelet on the menu, but before she prepares dinner for her hosts, she finds out that the locals prefer their lobster micro-waved.

She didn’t sign up for scaling cliffs in the pouring rain or crawling around on the muddy forest floor. But to get the finest and most interesting mushrooms, Chef Lynn is certainly put to the test. Her hosts forage and grow specialty mushrooms that take center stage in a spectacular final meal.

Chef Lynn gets pelted by olives raining down from trees when she attempts to live the life of an olive farmer. But when she visits a local monastery where wine is produced, the joke is on her.

Most people don’t think about all the work that goes into a glass of orange juice. Lynn visits the oldest organic citrus farm in Florida with a mission to highlight oranges and tangelos in every course of a meal. To make sure her dinner is pitch perfect, Lynn also confronts her fear of bees to harvest some orange-blossom honey.

Farming oysters is a filthy dirty job, but Chef Lynn thinks it will be an easy assignment. She quickly finds out that she’s bitten off way more than she can chew, and her host has no patience for her whining.

Chef Lynn signs up as first mate on a shrimp boat off the coast of Oregon. But she doesn’t realize the deal means she has to bunk in overnight with the guys until the crew hauls their quota of shrimp.

There are hundreds of varieties of heirloom tomatoes -- one of Lynn’s all-time favourite ingredients. She visits a farm in one of the most southern points in the continental United States to work with as many types of heirloom tomatoes as possible. Lynn then gets elbow-deep in compost on a farm that grows avocadoes and micro-greens.

Almost all the turkey eaten in North America is genetically modified, but a small group of farmers in Kansas are reviving Heritage turkey. Chef Lynn pays them a visit, but is pushed beyond her limits. She’s humiliated and embarrassed and then tries to regain her hosts’ request by preparing them a Thanksgiving style dinner like they’ve never had before.