The 3 adjectives that run your kitchen

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Welcome back to Field Notes — the weekly letter for the chefs and farmers of Farm2Chef and Travel Villa Kitchen. This is the chef edition: a field note, a curating tip, and Siobhan's branding corner. Once a week, never more.

From the field

Chefs look to the Farm2Chef demo board first for seasonal, story-ready produce they can cook live — if your farm or your kitchen has something fresh coming on, the board is where it gets seen. In the neighborhood: the Live Oak Farmers Market hosts its monthly chef demo on third Saturdays in Third Ward — farmers' produce, cooked live in front of the community.

A note to carry with you

I choose thoughts that are fresh, generous, and true. My mind is my first kitchen. I keep it clean.

Houston food news

Tomorrow night — Thursday, October 15, 6 PM — DiningOut's RARE Steak Championship returns to POST Houston (401 Franklin St, Downtown). More than 25 of Houston's top restaurants — including Doris Metropolitan, Georgia James, Rainbow Lodge, Guard and Grace, and Marmo — serve unlimited steak tastings in a judged competition (Best Traditional, Best Creative, Best Cocktail, plus Critic's Choice and People's Choice). New this year: a VIP Omakase, a six-course chef-led tasting inside the contest. Tickets: GA $125 (7 PM entry) · First Taste $175 (6 PM) · VIP $275 (6 PM + Omakase) at houston.raresteakfest.com. 21+. A portion of proceeds benefits the Blackwood Educational Land Institute. For chefs: this is the room where Houston's steak game gets judged — worth a study trip, and People's Choice means the crowd decides. (Source: DiningOut.)

Curating the week

Build the week's menu around 3 anchor ingredients from 2 farms, then fill in around them. A short menu that tells one farm story beats a long menu that tells none — guests remember the story, and farmers remember the chef who told it.

Siobhan's branding corner

With Siobhan C. Skerritt, co-founder of VK Capital Ventures. This week, from Chapter 3 of her guide Your Personality Is Your Supply Chain Strategy — brand voice, in 3 adjectives. Choose three adjectives for how you actually operate. In her framework, an Architect might be precise, reliable, methodical; a Storyteller warm, relational, imaginative. Then let every bio, menu note, and farm conversation sound like those three words. More from Siobhan at siobhanslifework.com.

Follow along where the days happen: @travelvillakitchen on Instagram and Threads — farm availability, demo calls, and what's fresh.

P.S. — the coffee

Six Rows Coffee is our farm-to-cup coffeehouse. Find the café pouring at Live Oak Farmers Market on third Saturdays, follow @sixrowscoffee, or browse the shop at sixrowshouston.com.

With appreciation,
— Rio Moses
Operations & Marketing, VK Capital Ventures / Travel Villa Kitchen · Farm2Chef
[email protected]