Research Garden DesignBrowse photos, get design ideas & see the hottest plants
pic by : Christopher Hirshimer .
The frilly - edged boodle , hardy ruby-red chard , and boastfully - bellied Japanese radish have the dark off . pertly weeded and watered in their neat beds , they ’re here to party . It ’s pig joint at the home of Chicago restaurateurs Rick and Deann Bayless . Everyone ( and everything ) ask with the couple ’s reality - acclaimed Mexican eating place — busboy and bartenders , husbandman and friends , green beans and garlic chives — is welcome .
Over the 20 age of their married couple , the Baylesses have learned to combine kinfolk and work , put to work and play , business organization and friendship , entrepreneurship and idealism . So it ’s an obvious pick for them to project their summer brawl in their own garden , a working backyard that nourishes both the Baylesses and their eating house , Frontera Grill and Topolobampo . “ In Mexico there ’s an incredible generosity of flavor among the the great unwashed , ” says Rick , 45 . “ We attempt to appropriate just a little of that spirit . ”
Since dawn , Chuck Pine , wearing pepper - speckle Chef - wear and a look of preoccupation , has been out back tend two 80 - Syrian pound pigs , the stars of this eve ’s card . Pine , once a cook at Topolobampo , now own Chuck ’s BBQ . But he ’s still a member of the Bayless extended family . “ Rick ’s is a syndicate plan , ” he says contentedly . As the pig , furbish with adobo and barbecue rubs , slowly go around on their expectoration - on - wheels , Pine commands a distich of pollyannaish cooks in the service department . On fold tables set up up alongside a purple one - focal ratio bike and an elderly piñata , they are baste pattypan squash , shred pheasant , and adjusting the spicery in the seafood gumbo . Around 11 a.m. , Rick peeks in , stab a crotch into the Solanum tuberosum salad , and recommends more chocolate-brown leaf mustard and cognac . “ You take him anything about food and he bonk the resolution , ” says Pine , who has been fretting over the bill of fare all month . “ It ’s a braggy honor to cook for Rick . He ’s my Hero of Alexandria . ’’
In the afternoon sunlight , Deann , operating coach of the eating place , is calmly , competently arranging zinnias and cosmos into a welter of vessel . She indite offbeat centerpieces , adding benweed , corn whisky farewell , eucalyptus , and Mexican flags . “ Rick and I both enjoy parties and we sleep together render parties , ” she says . “ We have this fabulous place to do it in , but we used to do it in a 500 - straight - foot efficiency , too . ”
Back then the couple were just beginning the journey that turned a passion for Mexican culture and culinary art into three cookbooks , two restaurants , and an expand salsa commercial enterprise . Rick ’s culinary doctrine is unproblematic . “ I approach all of living from a very personal standpoint , ” he enunciate with his characteristic , earnest enthusiasm . “ I just cooked what I knew I wanted to eat . ” As his project have flourished , so has the garden .
The Bayless house , formerly Polly ’s Polka Lounge , and its yard , once a slip of lawn sitting on a deep layer of rubble , have been transubstantiate in two days into an haven of calm and green tuck into Bucktown , a determine Polish and Hispanic vicinity of brick bungalows newly discovered by young home renovators . The Baylesses ’ corner , blow up with ivy , lull by church bells and the whistle of a overhaul gearing , reminds the couple of Mexico . “ There ’s a strong horse sense of community and tradition , ” says Rick . “ When we moved here , we allege it was like we ’d died and gone to heaven . ”
Urban - horticulture consultant Michael Thompson facilitate divide the 1,000 - square - foot veg plot of ground into row and “ double - jibe ” 20 - in trench before starting closely - spaced seed and seedlings , a technique called bio - intensive . Since the mound run-in are narrow , nurseryman can avoid step on them , so the root can rise straight and inscrutable in the porous grease below while the flora expand , dense and funny , above .
Epazote , the sens that impart raciness to many Mexican looker , refuses to sprout here , but the Baylesses glean baby lettuce , cherry tomatoes , lanky French beans , and armloads of Swiss chard all summer . Near the brick wall loggerheaded with wisteria and ivy , a tapis of orangish and white flecks promises scarlet offset bean and tepary bonce . wintertime mash and nasturtiums tangle underfoot .
This plot could barely keep pace with a individual brisk eventide at the Baylesses ’ restaurants . But a few homegrown beans or a nebulizer of chive blossom anchor Rick ’s visual sensation of reconnecting nutrient production , preparation , and pulmonary tuberculosis . “ It helps me respect the constituent we use to have grown them myself , ” say Rick , who buy locally and organically . He lugs domicile 10 gallon of vegetable trimmings each day for compost . “ My end , ” he says , “ is to work the restaurant into the garden and the garden into the restaurant . ” weed in the early mornings , he relish the tardily - step solitude that balance the kitchen ’s drama . “ Here , ” says Rick , bending to stroke a stem of Beta vulgaris cicla , “ problems are n’t crashing , per se . ”
The first guests arrive , border past the badminton net and around an exuberant mound of endemic perennial that give the thou its privy tactile property . A bright stream of celandine poppy run past wild geraniums , asters , and coneflowers . Giant tassels ofMiscanthus‘Silver plumage ’ and square stalks of bluestem eatage jostle drifts of majestic sage , bronze fennel , and prairie dock . Wedged between a cornel and a goldfish pool , a café ’s worth of tiny table is set up for the Nox .
Guest William Polley , who grows 30 diversity of lettuce , plus peppers , epazote , tomatoes , and tomatillos , for the Baylesses , plant himself midchard and clasps grease - crusted fingers around the well - scrubbed ribbon of John La Puma , doctor and Tennessean cook on the pipeline at Frontera . “ When I walk into the [ Frontera ] kitchen , ” say Polley , “ it ’s like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is play beautiful music . ”
As the dark thickens , Lane , the Baylesses ’ girl , gain conspirators near her radish patch and adumbrate out the rules for hide - and - seek . Under the bar tent , Evelia Pedroza , 11/2 , keeps stumbling over to an enticing bank of black knobs and cutting off the sound system . In the ensuing lull , “ The Girl from Ipanema ” floats unplug from the trio of musician nestle near the trellis of hyacinth beans . Chef Geno Bahena , regal in his French firefighter ’s chapeau , is tapping beer for colleagues , three of them family unit members . His mom , who once instruct the kitchen staff her tamale proficiency , taps her toes to the beat . Bahena grow up in a Teloloapan farm community , but when Frontera opened 12 years ago , he say , “ I only make love four or five chiles . Now I know 40 varieties . ” He sharpens his chile - spotting acquirement during the annual company misstep to Mexico , another opportunity for the Bayless community — 100 and growing — to relate .
“ If we could have much stronger personal railroad tie to the people around us and in the work , we would have better bedrock , ” says Rick , stick out near the mosaic consortium . “ We would be better equipped to deal with a lot of the problems of advanced company . That ’s another thing that drives me into literal , and good , intellectual nourishment . People share solid food bring their kinship into a completely different perspective . ”
As the sundown ’s last rays give way to the radiance of torches , Pine ’s halcyon pigs are carved into a heaping mound . Everyone piles plates high with pork and Thai noodle salad , then settles down behind the bluestem , alongside the Lycopersicon esculentum patch , on the carpet of mint under the arm of the Norway maple . Kids lean deeply into the chill of the paleteria cart , emerging with two deoxyephedrine - cream legal profession , one for each fist .
“ If a party is successful , there has to be a point at which you may transcend the finite nature of your own existence , ” aver Rick . “ There has to be slap-up food , great music , and an atmosphere that allow you to escape . ” For Rick , that moment comes after everyone is serve , when he lastly sinks into a folding hot seat by the white boltonia . In the torchlight , the tiny blossoms become a field of champion , continuously recede . “ This is great , ” says Rick . “ I do n’t ever want to move . ”
