Hope everyone had a great 4^th of July weekend! Aside from the typical festivities of eating lots of grilled food and fireworks, I had the pleasure of spending the early morning of July 4^th in downtown Chicago at the ABC Channel 7 studios to do a grilling demonstration. Tony Stallone of Peapod, a grocery delivery company that's quite big in the Chicago area, hosts a show once a month on ABC and I was invited to cook on the show. The Cedar Planked Salmon is one of the most popular items on Wildfire's menu, and Peapod carries the salmon, sauce and planks used to make this dish, so it was a natural choice for the show. I hope you enjoy watching this video, and I invite you to try the recipe on the website at home!

Summer is an exciting time of the year to be a chef. The bounty of fresh, ripe, and tasty produce that starts to become available creates opportunities to conceive new and flavorful dishes. Our Illinois Wildfires have just started working with Nichols Farm located in Marengo, IL. You may have seen their produce stand at one of the 15 Farmers' Markets in the area, including Green City and the Evanston Farmers' Market.

Nichols Farm is family owned and operated and I have been working directly with one of the sons, Nick Nichols. I receive a weekly email from Nick with the inventory sheet of what is available. When I place the order, they pick the produce the next day and then deliver to the restaurant.

We have been running some specials using this fresh produce at our Wildfire in Glenview and will be expanding the dishes to our other Chicagoland Wildfire's this summer. We are currently running a Roasted Beet Salad that features chiaggo, golden and red beets with tender baby lettuce in a honey mustard vinaigrette topped with toasted hazelnuts and shaved manchego cheese. Another delicious dish is the Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon with Nichols Farm braised red Swiss chard and roasted Russian blue and banana fingerling potatoes in a lemon vinaigrette.

Early next week we will be receiving Michigan peaches and blueberries from Seedling Farm in South Haven, MI for use in our homemade Blueberry Peach Pie. I look forward to working with Peter Klein, the owner of Seedling Farm in getting the freshest peaches and blueberries for this popular seasonal pie.

Our Wildfire Chefs in Atlanta, GA, McLean, VA, and Eden Prairie, MN are in the process of forming relationships with local farmers from their communities to bring patrons at their locations the best of their area farms. Look for some tasty specials coming out of those locations in the near future!

From the wood burning oven~