Brock's star rising fast

Two days into Sean Brock's job as executive chef of the newly renovated Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., the local restaurant critic came in for dinner. It was Valentine's Day weekend, and upward of 350 reservations had been booked.

It was a recipe for disaster, and it turned out exactly that way.

"It was the two worst days of my life," says Brock. "I cried my eyes out."

The review wasn't positive, spoiling the debut of the then-24-year-old chef, at least in his eyes. He vowed not to take another day off until he got a good write-up.

Brock kept his word. He slept in the restaurant's kitchen for the next eight months. What's more, he got rid of his couch because "it symbolized laziness."

That was six years ago, a period Brock calls a "social breakdown." Brock has a couch again, but he's certainly not lolling around on it. As executive chef of McCrady's for the past 2 1/2 years, he makes a workaholic seem like a sloth.

The past year has been a particularly good one for Brock. His star is climbing in the restaurant universe, above Unity Alley in Charleston, where McCrady's has roots as a tavern dating from 1788.

Last month, Brock went up against three other chefs on the Food Network's "The Next Great Chef" show. He won the coveted title and $10,000. In the spring, he was a national finalist for "Rising Star Chef" as part of the James Beard awards, considered the Oscars of the food world.

But Charleston, where he graduated from Johnson & Wales University, is exactly where he wants to be. It allows him to be exactly who he wants to be.

Brock is chef, vegetable and pig farmer, agricultural preservationist, blogger and husband, all in a day. There is no distinction between time "on" and "off"; his waking hours are a continuous, slightly crazed pursuit of food in every stage of its being. He segues from food historian to molecular gastronomist with passion and playfulness always at his side.

At 10 a.m. last Thursday, Brock is a lonesome figure in a sun-drenched field on Wadmalaw Island, picking tender young kale and weeding radishes. This has been his routine for more than a year, a daily visit to a chunk of land that McCrady's leases on the Sea Island.

Brock established a 3-acre garden there last October to grow food for the downtown restaurant. Most are heirloom specialty vegetables, such as "Easter Egg" radishes that sport pastel colors of spring. Everything is started from seed, a throwback to old-fashioned, prehybrid farming.

It's a slower time at the farm now, but a few months ago, the fields were a torrent of flowers and fruit: 700 tomato plants in 35 varieties, 800 feet of okra, 1,200 feet of spring onions; 18 varieties of peas and beans. To keep up, McCrady's staff pitches in, sous chefs to servers.

Brock also is feeding his new-found passion for "saving" seeds. He has grown a number of crops for the sake of seeds only, trying to ensure that heirloom varieties won't be lost to future farmers.

Like Jimmy Red corn, a native strain from James Island that's nearly extinct. Brock is keeping 250 pounds of dried kernels, painstakingly harvested by hand, in a freezer. It can be milled for grits, but Brock is holding tight.

"I'm at a weird stage," he says. "I'm almost too attached to the seed saving. I don't want to eat it."

One night, however, he and a few fellow foodies were gathered in McCrady's kitchen. They wanted to try the Jimmy Red, but they had no mill. At least they had no cold-milling method, which produces optimum flavor for finely tuned palates.

Brock had an idea. He filled a blender with the corn and super-cold liquid nitrogen, pulsed them a few times, and got perfect grits. Just like that.

"It's a great example of blending technology and agriculture," he says.

Brock says farming is an "incredible learning experience," but it has practical value as well, saving the restaurant $3,000 to $6,000 a month in food costs. That doesn't mean everything flourishes from the ground.

The beets, for instance. "We planted literally 800 feet. How many did we harvest? Two."

Farming is humbling, and that's OK by Brock. "It feels good to feel dumb," he says.

Across the road and into the woods, Brock is tending to another investment that soon should pay off. Pigs are being fattened up with acorns, grain, peanuts, kitchen scraps and a daily dose of milk.

Brock waits until the pigs are busy at the feeder, with their backs turned, before daring to pour the milk into a shallow pail. Just as the last drop falls, the pigs notice. Within seconds, the scene turns into a frenzy of snorting and shoving and pigs slinging mud and milk through the air.

For now, "We have the 10 luckiest pigs in the world," Brock says. But their fortunes will change by the new year, when they become the first "house-raised" members of McCrady's charcuterie program. Brock is feeling so inspired about country ham lately that he's planning to devote an entire room to it.

Brock came by his love of the land growing up in a coal-mining town in Wise County, Va., just across the state line from Kentucky.

"So small, it doesn't have a restaurant," he says. "So you eat out of the garden and Mason jars. As a kid, I grew up just like this, wandering through the garden and eating."

His grandmother's kitchen table is the altar of his memories. It was where the shelling, the cooking and the eating took place, but just as importantly, the socializing.

"I was lucky to see that at a young age, the entertainment. It (the table) is how we welcome people, it's how we entertain."

Brock's grandmother noticed his early interest in food and began nurturing it. She bought him a hand-pounded wok, which he still uses, from a late-night TV commercial. By the time he was 11, he was making stir-fries.

Today, Brock makes use of advanced restaurant technology and techniques to inspire and control the execution of his food. He has pieces of equipment that cook at extremely precise temperatures, under pressure or with vapor instead of steam. He's a fan of sous vide, a vacuum cooking method.

He's constantly asking himself and his staff, "How can we present this in a new way nobody has seen before?" That creative food play has resulted in edgy edibles such as cubes of gelatin that tasted like chips and salsa and boiled peanut cotton candy.

Less extreme are whimsical presentations, such as last week's garden-fresh whole radishes with their leaves intact. Brock simply dipped the root end in green goddess dressing and rolled it in black olive powder to look like "dirt."

He eschews being labeled a molecular gastronomist although he regularly pushes the boundaries of typical food with scientific applications. "We don't like that word. We say 'forward-thinking.' "

Brock tries to temper any slide toward "gimmicky" by making local, seasonal foods his No. 1 priority and conveying their stories.

"It's about the relationship we have with the guy who has the boat. He calls you from his satellite phone and says he has caught a bunch of fish. It's about what comes out of the garden, or our neighbor's garden, or the farmers market."

Brock never loses sight of where he came from.

"My personal mission is to sing the gospel of the South. We have so many amazing things here. I think there are so many things we should be proud of. Cornbread, country ham and bourbon, there's nothing better. They're better than white truffles."

Teresa Taylor is the food editor. Reach her at food@postandcourier.com or 937-4886.