- "Washington Grown" is made possible by funding from the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the USDA Specialty Crop Block Rent program, and by the Potato Farmers of Washington.

Learn why Washington is home to the world's most productive potato fields and farmers by visiting potatoes.com.

- Hi everyone, I'm Kristi Gorenson, and welcome to "Washington Grown."

Some of Washington's earliest agricultural roots started right here in Walla Walla.

Today, it's known for wheat, wine, and of course, sweet onions.

In this episode, we're gonna learn how this small town has made a big impact.

I'm shearing Walla Walla Sweet Onions at Pacific Agra Farms.

Say goodbye to my fingers.

I'll miss you.

[laughs] And I'm making beef tenderloin with spring onions at TMACS in Walla Walla.

This is like my kind of meal.

Steak, potatoes, onions.

- That's kinda what we're doing here.

- Then Tomás is checking out a specialty high school culinary program.

- I'm teaching you how to go to work.

I want you to do one plate, 50 plates, 500 plates.

- In one hour.

- In one hour.

- All this and more today on "Washington Grown."

[bright music] It's a flavor-cation for your mouth.

- Flavor-cation.

- I'm just gonna hold on.

- You got a long ways to go.

- Okay, sorry.

I know, get with it.

- You were not kidding about a party of flavors.

Wait a minute, where are all my pears?

- Eat two, pick one?

- Exactly.

- I'm gonna stick around a while.

- We're changing hearts tonight.

- Yes we are.

- Wow, I got work to do.

- Yeah you do.

- All right, let's go.

- Down in Walla Walla, the fresh produce brings in wine lovers from around the world, and you can't have great wine without having a great meal to go along with it.

Here at TMACS, they're using the amazing bounty of the region to create fantastic meals for guests.

With the combination of great food, great wine, and great atmosphere, they're getting some rave reviews.

- TMACS is like a city restaurant, but with a hometown feeling.

- It kind of feels like you're coming into someone's house.

- Like going home to grandma's.

- I want everyone to feel welcome.

I want everyone to feel like they don't need to dress up or they can dress down.

I want them to feel like they're at home.

They're in my home.

This is my home.

- Tom Maccarone is the co-owner of TMACS.

His greatest joy is serving his guests amazing food.

- When I started this business, I would entertain at my home because I love cooking and I would have friends over and I would have different groups of friends that didn't really know each other.

But by the end of the night, they were swapping phone numbers and wanting to hang out again.

Unfortunately, my friends often tell me that they're angry with me because they now have to pay for what I used to do for free.

- Beautiful.

You can come here dressed up, or you can come here wearing jeans, and know that you're gonna get great food and a great cocktail, a great glass of wine.

- The service is really attentive.

The food is delicious.

It just, it's a very comfortable place to be.

- Don't miss later in the show, when TMACS co-owner and chef Jose and I make beef tenderloin with Walla Walla spring onions.

Gonna totally destroy this, but I want to eat it.

[upbeat music] When you think about Walla Walla farms, two major crops come to mind.

One makes great wine and the other makes great onion rings.

Walla Walla Sweet Onions are here for the season at Pacific Agra Farms, and manager Luke Mata and his team are working hard to harvest these special vegetables so Washington can have them fresh and delicious.

For Luke, destiny always smelled a bit like a Walla Walla Sweet Onion.

- I started coming out when I was about 10 years old out here at onion harvest during the summers.

I came back and decided to try something new.

So I taught for a few years and then came back to the farm.

And now I've been back on the farm for probably another 10 years or so.

- So the onions were calling you?

- They were, they were.

- I mean, they're called Walla Walla Sweet Onions.

So why is this area so great?

- So it has to do with the soil that's around here in the area.

When we search out for fields, we look for fields that are closest to the rivers because it's usually been flooded over the years.

And we find that they usually raise better onions than others.

My uncle always told us, the places that it's harder to make a crop is the places you'll end up growing nice onions.

- In order to use less water, Luke and his team often use drip irrigation.

- When we water it, it goes directly into the soil.

So we save a lot on the evaporation and things where if you're watering overhead, you lose a lot, especially on the really hot days that we can have around here sometimes.

So we're putting the water exactly where it needs to go to help grow the crops.

Keeping as much water in the rivers is really important for all the other parts of the ecosystem, for the fish, and for other things that other people depend on.

So the more that we can conserve and not lose just to evaporation in the air, I think we're trying to do our part.

So right now we have a crew of guys that are hand-topping all the onions out there, and they put them into rows and now they're loading them up into bins, and then we're taking them off to the storage for curing.

- So your workforce here pretty important?

- Yeah, they are very important.

Without the people that we have working here, we couldn't do this on our own.

So these guys are picking them up, trimming down the roots, and then taking the tops off.

- They're moving fast.

- Yeah, they are.

- We need to get out of their way.

This is almost as tall as me.

It's a big onion.

- That's a split onion.

- But we won't show this one.

This one, you can't show that one.

- Can we have a little race between you two?

- Oh, dear God.

- Let me go look.

I'll see if there's some shears over here.

- Say goodbye to my fingers.

I'll miss you.

[laughs] - So what you try to do is you grab two or three at a time and then just trim off the roots.

- Oh, not all the way.

- And then trim the tops off.

- He's gonna win.

We all know this, right?

- I haven't done this.

I'm about with you.

I've just watched them do it.

- Get set, go.

[upbeat music continues] - I didn't do too bad.

I may have a future as a cutter in the field.

- Yes, you do.

- So I think we tied.

- Yeah, I think so.

- They are very skilled and talented and they do it fast, so I appreciate their skill.

[bright music] - We all know Walla Walla Sweets are a great onion, but you want to know what else a Walla Walla Sweet is?

Find out after the break.

- Coming up, I'm making beef tenderloin with Walla Walla spring onions at TMACS.

Gonna totally destroy this, but I want to eat it.

And we're in The Kitchen at Second Harvest trying Chef Laurent's onion and bacon jam recipe.

- Walla Walla Sweets are a great onion, but they're also an amateur baseball team.

- We're back at TMACS in Walla Walla.

Incredible dishes come hot out of the kitchen made from the freshest local ingredients.

After all, Walla Walla is known to have amazing locally grown food.

- Walla Walla has an abundance of beautiful produce here in the valley.

- When you're using really fresh produce, you don't have to manipulate.

It is what it is.

It's beautiful on its own.

- Walla Walla, again, like I said, it's a special community.

We have a great art scene here.

We have a great wine scene here.

Our culinary food program here is like no other.

You don't have this in a lot of small towns between here and Seattle.

- Tom Maccarone is the co-owner of TMACS.

He believes that one reason the restaurant is so successful is that the entire region grows such amazing food.

- We're always gonna be a farming community.

Whether it's the grapes for the wine, it's the wheat, whether it's the produce, it's always gonna be a farming community.

- Well, the food is beautiful, right?

It's fresh, it's colorful.

- Tom and Jose have always managed to continually change the menu whatever's in season, and really take advantage of what Walla Walla has to offer.

- Back in the kitchen, Co-owner and Executive Chef Jose Mesa is putting in the work to make sure his food is perfect from the field to the plate.

- He meets with them and talks about "Here's what I really need from you."

They specifically are growing things for us.

So like what's vision this year?

What do you need from us?

Anything we can get local, we get local.

That's what we're all about.

- Time to head to the kitchen to cook with Executive Chef Jose.

When we're in Walla Walla, we wanna feature gorgeous onions, right?

- That's what we're known for.

- What are these?

These are not very big.

- Yeah.

This is the beginning of the season.

This potentially will become the Walla Walla Sweets, spring onions, salad onions.

They're called salad onions because they're very commonly used in salad.

They're a lot more milder, sweeter than the actual onions.

Yeah, I just pulled them up 30 minutes ago.

- That's awesome.

- I was running around and I called Castoldi Farms and I called him up this morning and he's like, "I got you."

So I drove down to College Place and picked them up with my own hands.

- That's awesome.

So these are fresh as fresh can be.

I think that's one of the best smells ever is butter and onions.

While the onions begin to cook, we season the steak with salt and pepper.

I bet you love having so many fresh options available to you.

- Oh wow.

I love it.

This is kind of what kept me here.

I started working in the farm, so I know what it is to cultivate, to harvest all this stuff.

- We grill the steak medium rare.

While it cooks, we flip the onions and add some pre-cooked fingerling potatoes and prosciutto wrapped asparagus.

This is like my kind of meal, steak, potatoes, onions.

- That's kind of what we're doing here.

- Once the steak is cooked, it's time to plate.

- And I'm gonna let you put the steak right on top.

- Oh, okay.

Where am I putting it?

- I always tell my kitchen center and tall.

I love my food center and tall.

There you go.

- Okay.

Looks center and tall.

Finally, we finish the plate with a special demi-glace and pea shoots to garnish.

[upbeat music] Gonna totally destroy this, but I want to eat it.

- Did we get it to mid rare medium?

- Oh yeah, I think so.

What do you think?

I like it.

It's so good.

- So should melt in your mouth.

That's what I'm expecting out of the steak.

You got the saltiness of the prosciutto.

Kind of give it a contrast on the sweet onion.

- The onions are like butter.

- You said what I wanted it, was aiming for.

Melts in your mouth like butter.

Everything on this plate is all locally sourced with the exception of the steak, but the steak, it's still in Washington.

- Yeah.

We love that.

Good stuff, huh?

- I say so.

- Yeah.

That's delicious.

Jose, thank you so much.

For more recipes, restaurants, farms, and fun, visit us at wagrown.com.

- We've met so many amazing chefs on the show with an array of diverse backgrounds.

But there's one thread that connects them all.

They all had to start somewhere.

Here at NEWTech Skills Center in Spokane, high school juniors and seniors are learning the ins and outs of the culinary world.

And director David Ulyanchuk believes that the mission goes beyond a typical classroom.

- The whole purpose of NEWTech is to get kids ready for careers.

Everything from auto, construction, professional services.

Everything we do is from the lens of employability.

And our goal isn't just to graduate.

Our goal is to help kids take that next step.

- You can continue and go to college or decide that this is your career.

- Instructor Eric Cook encourages any student with a passion for cooking to see if this program is right for them.

- If they want to devote more of their day to culinary arts, then they should come here.

This is the AP program for culinary arts.

- No kid wants to sit down for hours and hours and learn from a book.

- Instructor Cynthia Monroe channels her passion for cooking and her industry experience to help students get ready for whatever may come after graduation.

- I'm teaching you how to go to work.

I want you to do one plate, 50 plates, 500 plates.

- In one hour?

- In one hour.

And we don't have the lettuce that we're supposed to have.

Now go, what do you do?

For two hours and 40 minutes, culinary can be your world.

- So what do the students themselves have to say about the program?

All right, so Olivia, what are you doing right now?

- I'm working on a palate cleanser for our showcase tonight.

It's a lemongrass sorbet that has basil in it and some soy milk and it's really good.

I'm gonna do spherification of honey pearls on top, which I'm incredibly excited for.

I'm also really nervous for.

- Do you enjoy baking?

- I love baking.

- Is that one of your favorite things to do in the culinary world?

- Absolutely, I wanna own a bakery.

- You want to own a bakery?

- It's my favorite thing.

- I like making soups.

I like making new dishes.

I like excitement and flavor and something simple and homey, but completely putting a different spin on it.

- There's so many skills I've learned in this class, like breaking down meats and using every piece of what you have to further maximize your product.

- It's more of the industrial side where you get like industrial kitchen, meal, and you know how the real world is gonna be like.

- I'm a physical learner and so I go to school.

I'm not thinking about math or nothing.

I'm just thinking about, ooh, what dessert can I make tomorrow?

- And of course, you can't teach culinary arts in Washington without teaching the importance and prosperity of Washington grown ingredients.

- Every year I just try to up the game of how local I can get because some of these kids didn't see fresh vegetables.

- You can taste the difference.

You can't mimic it.

- So having local food is really important.

That farmer that you did all those chickens over there that they just did, they worked hard.

They did a lot of work to get that chicken to you.

So you need to be able to respect those things along the way.

- How much you learn really depends on you.

My goal is to be a Michelin star chef.

You put the work in and chef will meet you halfway and she'll help you go further and further and further.

- Even if you don't end up going to a food focused career, it's still builds up endurance and knowledge of just cooking at home.

- Right now, my plan is to go to Washington State University for culinary arts and food science.

- I'm going to a culinary program in Oregon.

- I wanna go to SCC for the pastry program for two years.

And then after that, I wanna open up my own bakery.

- I'm pretty sure I'll learn more here than I will at college, but we'll see.

- It's been life changing.

I don't think I'd be able to learn half the things I did without having half the resources.

Plus our kitchen is huge.

- There's just certain things you can't learn in a school's kitchen.

You have to go here.

It's awesome.

It's awesome.

I 10 out of 10 recommend.

- Coming up, Val is learning about the history of Walla Walla and the famous Sweet Onion.

- They started selling like mad, and before it was all over, there were 92 Italian onion farms, yes.

[bright music] - In Walla Walla, there's a unique and funky place called the Red Monkey.

Now don't let the eclectic decor fool you though, because when it comes to food, this restaurant does not monkey around.

Great fun, family kind of atmosphere.

- Chef Eric uses many local ingredients from the Walla Walla Valley.

But there's only one side dish that's perfect for the famous Walla Walla Sweet Onion.

- Fries are king, but when they're during the sweet season, onion rings are definitely the king of the crop.

- The king of the crop.

All right, now it's time to try these fresh and piping hot onion rings.

Employees only, I'm going back to make some onion rings.

So how many pounds of onions you say you guys go through today?

- Probably close to 50.

- 50 pounds a day, okay.

That's pretty good.

- So basically for our onions, just cut them in half.

Nice big onion rings.

Those we kind of drop it in there.

Let it hold it for a little bit.

Kinda letting that batter sear a little bit kind of.

- Right, let it float better once you let it go.

Look at the size of those things.

That is awesome.

Look at these monsters.

Holy moly.

Little house seasoning.

- House seasoning.

- Check that out.

All right, let's try one you and I.

- Careful, it's gonna be hot.

- These are hot.

These are right out of the fryer here.

- I always say, friends don't let friends eat hot food.

But we're gonna make an exception.

- Ding ding, here we go.

I love a big meaty onion.

That's what it's about.

It's not about the batter.

Celebrate that onion.

I mean, listen to this, ready?

Good thing you only made a half order.

So what do the customers at the Red Monkey have to say about these golden sweet rings?

- It looks very tasty and yummy.

[upbeat music] Has a lot of crunch.

- It's a good onion ring.

- You definitely taste the onion, which is great.

- What kind of onion?

- Walla Walla Sweet.

- Okay.

I thought so.

- One or two of these would be a meal.

It's a large onion ring.

- And I'm still crunching on it, yeah.

- It's quite good.

- It was a good onion ring.

I would eat that again.

- Good, well they have them here so you can order them whenever you'd like.

- Walla Walla is a special place here in Washington.

With so many amazing vineyards and fantastic wines, it's a destination for wine lovers around the country.

But before wine, Walla Walla had a rich and important history.

- Agriculture is the center of life in this community.

- Mike Denny is a former President of the Fort Walla Walla Museum Board.

He loves the rich history of Walla Walla agriculture.

And in this town, you can't talk about farming without mentioning the Walla Walla Sweet Onions.

- The gentleman that brought onions to this valley, which made this valley very famous, actually picked up onion starts from Sicily.

He was on his way to America and he thought, "I'm gonna grab some of those onion starts."

And he came here and planted them.

And lo and behold, they grew into these huge onions and they were sweet.

They started selling like mad and it was like, "Whoa, give us some starts."

And before it was all over, there were 92 Italian onion farms here, yes.

- Now Mike is taking me around the museum grounds.

- So these are original structures that were brought here and set up for the museum.

This was a nice place in the early 19th century.

- Yeah, it looks very roomy in here actually.

- So this is the blacksmith shop.

And this was the center of repair for every farm.

In the early 20th century, they were still using blacksmith shops for horseshoes and all kinds of ox shoes and mule shoes.

They all had different shoes.

So this is a display garden to showcase what is grown in the Walla Walla Valley for visiting students and visitors.

These are the onions that were brought from Sicily.

These are Walla Walla Sweet Onions.

You can eat them like an apple.

- My daddy used to eat them like an apple.

I remember my sister and I would just sit there and go, "Ooh, gross."

- Yeah, an onion, ew.

- But I love them.

I love to grill.

- Great sandwich onions.

Wonderful.

- Today, Walla Walla's claim to fame is wine.

That's why Kristi is talking with Kate Derby, winemaker at Spring Valley Vineyard.

As one of the first vineyards in the region, they have a long legacy of wine in the valley, but they didn't start that way.

- My great great-grandfather Uriah is the one who homesteaded out here in the late 1800s.

They did dry land wheat farming.

My grandparents got to the point when they were running it and they said, "What else can we add to this property that will make our grandkids and their kids and more generations not wanna sell it?"

- The answer came in the form of wine grapes.

- Papa's like, "Let's just see what happens."

First year, it grew.

Second year, we were starting to sell to local Walla Walla wineries.

They kept wanting us to plant more.

We planted 45 acres of grapes and they were getting really high acclaim.

And so we were like, "Hmm, maybe we should try making this wine."

It was really because of my grandparents saying, "What else can we do to keep this in the family?"

Walla Walla has come so far.

Growing up, you could park on Main Street and walk down the middle of it.

I mean there were maybe two, three cars.

I loved Walla Walla then.

But the fact that Walla Walla has embraced this new to us industry, but kept the character that Walla Walla has always been, it is so fun to see.

And it's really fun to be a part of.

[bright music] - We're back at Second Harvest Food Bank in The Kitchen.

They have this beautiful teaching kitchen behind us.

And we are going to taste some amazing recipes that have been created by Chef Laurent Zirotti.

- It's my pleasure to be part of this beautiful program.

- We love it, and then we get the pleasure of tasting, and it's special that we get a chance to get together and talk about Washington grown food and Washington onions in particular for this episode.

Walla Walla onions.

- Love them.

- World famous.

- Famous french onion soup.

Very cliché.

Very cliché.

I don't know why we call it French, just onion soup.

But today, we are doing something a little different.

Lots of onion in that recipes, but it's a bacon jam.

- Had me at bacon.

- Onion and bacon.

And if you don't like bacon, I'd just skip the recipes, that's all.

- Move on to something else.

And I'm sorry, there must be something wrong with you if you don't like bacon.

Sorry guys.

Come on.

- Isn't it one of the food groups?

- I think so.

- It was fun being in the fields, The Walla Walla onion fields to kinda see how they do it.

And those workers are so fast and they don't cut off any fingers like I almost did.

- Well, and speaking of cutting off fingers, I had the opportunity as you guys could see to go to NEWTech and to see these young kids learning how to enter the culinary world in all sorts of different facets.

I just, it was so impressive to see their drive, to see their excitement, to see their passion.

I kind of miss those home ec classes that we all- - That's true.

- Absolutely.

- NEWTech good, hats off.

- I love it.

And they get a lot of confidence knowing that they can create these fantastic dishes.

So we're gonna learn how to make, what is it?

- Bacon jam.

- Bacon jam.

- Speaking of fantastic dishes.

With a lot of onions in the recipes.

- I love it.

Okay.

Let's see how we make it.

[upbeat music] - Man.

- Does.

- It smells like a barbecue.

- It does a little bit, well, the bacon has been smoked.

- Oh, you all are so civilized.

You used a cracker.

- She's just spooning it.

- I'm spooning it.

- Do you want a soup spoon?

- That's a good way to do it though.

- Oh my gosh, this would be great on a burger with some Walla Walla onions on top.

- Yes, it would.

- I'm so digging it.

One of the things I learned at the Walla Walla Museum is that the Walla Walla onion has a specific growing season, and it's from June, July until about the end of August.

So it's a very short season.

That's what I learned at the Walla Walla Museum.

- And that's when the whole town smells like onions.

The whole town, yeah.

- Including the people.

- Exactly.

- And it was brought over from Italy, from the Italian immigrants that came over and settled in the Walla Walla area, which I just found fascinating.

- And now they've claimed it.

That's like trademarked, right?

- Right, right.

So if you go to another area and they say they're growing Walla Walla onions, maybe not.

- No.

- So kind of like champagne, right?

It can't be called champagne unless it's from the Champagne region of France.

- And I believe the Walla Walla onion is in the Valencia Onion family.

- Very sweet onions.

Delicious.

- We love them.

This is delicious.

Thank you so much.

- Oh, thank you.

- Try it at home.

- And now with a cracker.

- Very easy recipe.

- That's my kind of recipe.

- And delicious.

- To get the recipe for Chef Laurent Zirotti's onion and bacon jam, visit us at wagrown.com.

Walla Walla is part of a very special region that puts Washington on the map.

That's it for this episode of "Washington Grown."

We'll see you next time.