Eating Seasonally
By: Jennifer Herseim (Photography: Ben Rollins) | Categories: Alumni Interest
Satterfield is executive chef and cofounder of Miller Union, a restaurant on Atlanta’s Westside that serves seasonal dishes with Southern flair. Building a menu around the harvests of the season makes use of Satterfield’s creative, out-of-the-box thinking—a mindset he honed in Tech’s College of Design.
“I work with organic material, not structures, so there is a very different kind of expression, but training your brain to think about materials and their form and function is very similar,” he explains.
After graduating in 1992, Satterfield played and toured in a rock band called Seely before switching careers in 2009 to start Miller Union with Neal McCarthy. Rustic, farmhouse-style dishes made from fresh, locally sourced ingredients have garnered accolades for the restaurant and for Satterfield himself, who was named “Best Chef: Southeast” by the James Beard Foundation in 2017.
Inside and beyond his restaurant’s kitchen, Satterfield is an advocate for seasonal cooking and sustainable practices. He serves on the board of Slow Food Atlanta and is a member of the City of Atlanta’s Food Waste Committee. His 2015 book, Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons, espouses the value of reducing food waste through the creative use of all parts of a vegetable. He’s at work on a new book about vegetables, expected to be released in Spring 2023.
“The little things can really add up,” says Satterfield, of seasonal eating. “You can start by going to your local farmer’s market, talking with farmers there, and buying fresh produce.” Make a seasonal ingredient the star of a main dish and save the rest of it to make two or even three dishes later.
Winter squash, which can be stored for several months, can be hollowed out, baked, and stuffed with spiced pork and mushrooms, while the leftover squash seeds can be roasted and added to granola or simmered and pureed for a flavorful broth.
Greens like Swiss chard, collards, and mustards in Georgia are plentiful in the winter—and with a little imagination, so too are the ways to eat them, Satterfield says.
“When you have fresh produce, you can see how just by changing the way you slice and dice it can enhance the flavors,” he says.
Collard greens are a great example. Most people separate the leaves from the stems, which are woody and slightly bitter. “The most effective way to cut the stalks is crosswise and in shorter pieces. That makes them easier to chew and digest,” Satterfield says. Enjoy the stalks raw, sautéed, or grilled.
They can enhance a dish with an umami flavor, he adds.
“Eating seasonally requires exploration and approaching each vegetable in a tiered way, thinking about the main dish, the ancillary byproducts, and finally, what can be composted,” Satterfield says.
Twice a week a local composting service picks up kitchen scraps and leftover food from Miller Union. Restaurant staff separate waste and recycling in-house, and a glass hauler comes by for glass waste.
“Sustainability is constantly evolving based on new things that we learn, but it’s been part of our restaurant from the beginning,” Satterfield says.
