Journal
Vol. 1
“Our menus tell a story about what is emerging at any moment on the farm. We love creating art that celebrates nature, and elevates it into something new and beautiful that we can share with our guests at the table.” - Chef Matt Lightner
Welcome to the first edition of the ōkta journal. In this volume we share stories that bring ōkta to life. Since opening ōkta a year ago, it has been an honor to share our love of food, wine, and hospitality and to bring together the talented group of individuals who made our creative vision into reality. In this journal, we share the perspectives of our team members who make ōkta the special place it is, as they share stories and thoughts about the creativity and intention behind every bite.
ōkta began with a dream: to celebrate the beautiful Willamette Valley by showcasing its incredible agricultural diversity and commitment to quality while honoring the changing of the seasons and the unique qualities that make the Pacific Northwest such an incredible food and wine destination. We are inspired daily by how the climate, soils, flora, and fauna, converge to create a place with such an abundance of agricultural products and natural beauty. At ōkta, our vision is to farm sustainably and regeneratively, in a way that builds the health of the natural world on and around our farm, and which also creates products with depth of flavor, high nutritional value, and that nourishes and inspires everyone who walks through our doors.
So much of what we do is inspired by nature. We are captivated by the complexity of the natural world that surrounds us. When we interact with it in an intentional and focused way, we foster our own inner balance. We want to share this love of nature, and the inspiration, peace, pleasure, and joy it brings us, with all of our guests. When you arrive at ōkta, you’re greeted by all of the ways we pay tribute to the natural world around us – through our name which references the changing skies influence on our region to the chiseled rock sculpture that serves as the dining room’s centerpiece with a nod toward the influence of the Missoula floods on the soils and topography of the Willamette Valley. Our dining room color palette, from the creams to blues to grays, pays tribute to our trademark Oregon weather, while the display of farm products that greet each guest is meant to connect you to the farm through the story of that evening’s tasting menu.
We are so fortunate that we get to create with what the ōkta farm gifts us, and also share with you the heart of our philosophy—our love of fostering human connection. We want every person who walks through our doors to feel as though they are at home. Thank you for taking the time to experience this creative journey with us, and for allowing us to welcome you into our home.
Founders Katie Jackson, Shaun Kajiwara, Chef Matt Lightner
A Farmer’s Perspective
It has been a pleasure to spend my first season on ōkta Farm. I have enjoyed getting acclimated to the different growing conditions and observing how each crop variety takes to the soil out here in the clay of Ribbon Ridge. It has been a privilege to team up with such an incredibly talented chef team and get to produce the farm fruits and vegetables they create with. It’s pretty special to see your melons become sorbet and beans become miso! I am dedicated to carrying on the hard-work of the previous farmer who started from scratch with a massive open field of blackberry, and continue to push it towards an increasingly biologically diverse, thriving farm.
Our goal this year was to increase biomass, fertility, and the microbiology of the soil. We spread 16 truckloads of locally sourced compost, a literal TON of lyme, and hundreds of pounds of rich organic bio fertilizer/inoculants. This work has been crucial to encouraging the health of the life that exists here. After all, this used to be a walnut orchard!
We are accelerating the microbial growth because it will allow us to produce densely nutritious, highly diverse crops for years to come. Continuing on we will rely heavily on a two-three year crop rotation and cover crop as much of the farm as often as we can in an effort to continue to build the life and biomass on the farm.
I’m grateful for the entire ōkta team, and especially for Carly Sweet, our amazing farm assistant who brings her A game every single week. I’m also grateful for the relationships we’re building through this project. The ōkta staff and chefs have regularly come up the hill to work in the dirt, bringing with them stories about how the farm connects back to guests through the dining experience. Everything comes full circle.
As summer has transitioned to fall and things are beginning to slow down on the farm, I’m able to vision forward for the next planting season, and dream a little about the future. My mind wanders to the possibilities of adding animals to the farm, expanding our mushroom operation, and eventually introducing honey bee colonies.
Saruh Wynes, Farmer, ōkta Farm
A Note from the ōkta lab
Summer is the busiest season on the farm. Due to natural shifts, some crops over produce and others underproduce, yielding an essential need for a reflexive outlet to catch the variances. The larder program extends to us a creative freedom that allows us to preserve produce at their peak, so that we can work with these flavors and textures throughout the year. A taste of summer in the middle of our long, cool winter really surprises the palate and delights the soul.
Last year we had an excess of tropea onions. These tubular red onions known for their sweetness are an absolutely special product. To extend the life of these alliums, we took the red bottoms and treated them like one would treat blackened garlic—with a long, slow transformative process. This process took roughly two months and produced a super caramelized sweet onion with the texture of fudge, giving the chefs a magical ingredient that adds a fruity allium caramel note. The greens were roasted in the wood fire oven and blended to produce a burnt allium ash. From the Aztecs using campfire ash to make alkaline water to nixtamalize their corn, to the Native Americans using culinary ash as a way to season their food or to act as an alkaline based leavening agent long before the development of baking soda—culinary ash isn’t a new technique. We honor these traditions while applying them in new ways.
The larder, farm, and the restaurant collaborate on how to best use our seasonal produce to ensure that we minimize waste. Our tomato plants were highly productive last year, and one of our initial projects in the larder was to create a catch all technique to collect the imperfect and excess tomatoes. Having worked in kitchens for years, I knew that creating a tomato water might be the perfect solution. Knowing chef Matt’s fascination with and appreciation for liquid shio koji (LSK), I thought producing seasonal LSKs to more intimately connect the farm to the table might be a great idea. We have been experimenting with a number of grain based LSKs. We are finding that the rye shio koji ferments more quickly than its counterparts and has a beautiful natural acidity to it. This struck me as an obvious pairing with the tomato water. When combined, the Tomato Water and the Rye Shio Koji techniques created what we call Tomato Rye LSK. It has a hint of sweetness, acidity from both the tomato and the shio koji, and a unique umami flavor that adds to its complexity. The Tomato Rye LSK was immediately a hit. I think we can anticipate its appearance on many future menus.
Larry Nguyen, Larder Chef, ōkta Lab
Immersive Hospitality
We pride ourselves on the immersive hospitality of our team in both the restaurant and hotel. There is nothing like the sense of welcoming each guest into our home and inviting them to make it their own. The bustling farm and summer season menu gave us such an amazing opportunity to do just that.
We begin each night in the restaurant with an abundant, of the moment product presentation. Our welcome to each and every guest that joins us, we use this time to begin to express our excitement about the ingredients from that day’s harvest on our farm. It is a personal moment to connect with each guest on the ingredients that they will soon experience in the tasting menu. More importantly though, it allows for the intimate connection between the guest and our team to begin to blossom.
This moment is one-of-a-kind, something I truly look forward to each night. As we prepare the ice chest for its nightly presentation, I imagine the types of conversations it might spark that evening. Which of our guests attempted to grow that same variety of tomato in their own garden this year? Which guest has never experienced kohlrabi before? And which of these guests can’t wait to take this inspiration home with them, whether to use it for the foundation of their own garden or to simply look at the picture they snapped from time to time to relive that moment? These swirling ideas are met with the excitement each guest brings to ōkta.
Welcome to our home, make it yours, we can’t wait to share it all with you.
Christine Langelier, General Manager, ōkta + Tributary Hotel
Join us at ōkta for the last few weeks of our Radiance menu, or book now for our Forest menu starting in late October. We look forward to seeing you soon.
