After watching another disturbing film clip of cows being horribly abused at factory farms, I discovered online an organic farm and restaurant on Vashon Island through localharvest.org that I wanted to check out, which is only 40 miles or so from Union. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday and headed out to explore, since neither of us had been to Vashon Island yet.
Since it’s an island, we had to plan our trip around the ferry schedule. While waiting for the ferry to depart, we spotted this seagull below us with an entire starfish in its mouth! Now that’s something you don’t see every day.
What a lovely community Vashon is.
The island is long and narrow, and there are ferry ports at each end of the long axis. There is a ferry direct to Seattle, another to Tacoma, and another to Southworth, Washington, which is a town I’d never even heard of before yesterday and was our closest ferry connection. It was only about a 10 minute ferry ride from Southworth to Vashon.
Once on the island, we headed directly to La Boucherie, the restaurant owned and operated by the owners of Sea Breeze Farm, which is in “downtown Vashon.” I had hoped we would be able to see the farm itself, but it turns out that’s at the other end of the island so we’ll save that for another day.
We had called ahead just to clarify their restaurant hours, and it turns out it’s such a small place that they basically rev up into high gear if they know someone is coming out to visit! So what we thought was a simple lunch reservation was really a private dining/wine tasting/meat and cheese tasting experience with their very knowledgeable and gracious manager Matt.
They raise all of their own cows, pigs and lambs in what they term “beyond organic,” all grass pastured and raised with kindness and care. They have raw milk and raw cheese that they make right there, as well as pates, “bone broth,” ricotta, several kinds of sausages, chickens and farm fresh eggs. All of their meats are unlike anything I’ve ever seen or tasted, and they use lots of dry aging. And NOTHING is frozen.
They also have a vineyard with a delightful variety of red and white wines. We sampled 4 or 5 and there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch. I have to admit, we came home with a couple bottles.
Jon and I each selected one each of their two lunch entrees and shared bites. Both entrees were fantastic, featuring their meats and sausages and organic winter greens. My favorite was the sausage and lentils with mustard. Then we moved into the market area and sampled more stuff! (Burp.)
NOTE: Great thanks to Jon for the great photos he took on his iphone yesterday. I was too busy stuffing my face.
Panther Speak 
Thanks for visiting despite the long journey…It was great having the both of you at La Boucherie. We certainly look forward to your next visit.
–Matt
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