Beacon Hill Arugula by Sean Hartley, Palace Kitchen Chef
Before Fam brought her arugula from Beacon Hill, she used to make potstickers at the Dahlia Lounge. She didn’t move very fast, but slowly and methodically produced thousands and thousands of potstickers for us. At first during the day time in the kitchen at the old Dahlia, and then after a surprise trip on the transfer truck with Steven Steinbock to her new workplace at the Palace, Fam was always a super jolly presence in the kitchen. She didn’t speak much English, having emigrated here from Laos after the Vietnam war.
After fifteen years or so of making our potstickers, Fam stopped working in the kitchen because of arthritis, and started bringing in the most beautiful arugula I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure where she got the seeds to start, but eventually she and a couple of friends started arriving unannounced at the Palace with backpacks and plastic bags full of the hardiest, spicy arugula you could hope for. The “rocket mafia,” as our manager Jay calls them, would ride city buses in from where ever their gardens are, and meet at the Palace to deliver. Sometimes we would get up to five of the containers you see in the pictures.
Fam died peacefully in her sleep a few years ago, but her daughter, also named Fam (see photo bottom right) still comes by sporadically to deliver arugula, Asian greens, herbs, and some not so delicious beets the size of softballs. If they make the effort to bring it in, I buy it, so I can have access to the arugula. Not only is Beacon Hill arugula a staple on the menu at Palace, but my interactions with the ladies that bring in the greens (see another lady who delivers arugula to us in the top photo) is one of my favorite parts of being called the chef at Palace
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