At Klippers Organic Acres, one farming family is growing, making, and serving their Similkameen Valley produce in their own fine dining space.
Words and Photos
By CINDA CHAVICH
Even in early summer, the late afternoon heat is intense— it’s as if we’ve opened the van door and stepped into a preheated oven. But that’s the beauty of the Similkameen Valley. Thanks to its hot, dry and breezy weather, this fertile stretch of southern B.C., just west of Osoyoos, is known as the organic farming capital of Canada.
Klippers Organic Acres is one of the most impressive operations among many here, a certified organic farm and orchard that’s expanded into an agritourism destination, featuring vacation suites, a cidery and Row Fourteen, a restaurant that takes farm-to-table dining in delicious new directions.
To say that Klippers is a diversified farm business barely scratches the surface of all the innovative ideas at play here.
FARMERS TO TABLE
Row Fourteen — named for the row in the apple orchard where this modern farmhouse restaurant sits — is the brainchild of farm owners Kevin and Annamarie Klippenstein and their restaurant chef/partner Derek Gray.
Tonight, Gray is behind the big wood-fired grill in the open kitchen that sits at one end of this soaring space, with its stunning post-and-beam construction, and Annamarie greets us at the door. Large windows frame views across the sea of fruit trees that are the source of materials for Klippers’ Untangled Craft Cider, with 120-plus seats (inside and out on the covered patio) and a large tasting bar.
It’s a space for locals and visitors to gather, whether you just want a glass of craft cider or to stay for Gray’s Harvest Dinner, an ever-changing tasting menu of the moment, celebrating what’s just picked from their acres of organic produce.
Tonight, it’s a little of both, starting with a flight of cider followed by a feast of eight seasonal courses.
Annamarie, the creative cider-maker, steps behind the open bar, where clerestory windows bath the space in warm light and stems of dried flowers float overhead, suspended on individual threads. She pours glistening glasses of her fruity brews, the Lionheart (sweetened with red plums and steeped with shiso), Hopped Apricot (made with winter banana apples and Citra hops) and Dry Newton (made with one of several varieties of traditional cider apples recently planted on the farm).
“We use our own produce, what is ready on the farm daily,” she says, proffering a selection of vegetable-forward snacks to start. “It’s a unique culinary experience.”
That it is. There is a tiny bowl of beautiful French radishes, with their tender and tasty tops intact, cold asparagus gazpacho to sip, and tiny immature apricots that are brined to create what look and taste like large green olives.
Like many of the products that have been developed at Klippers, the inspiration for this salty and crunchy little snack was the partners’ commitment to zero food waste. The tiny, walnut-sized green apricots are culled in spring, to enhance ripening and the size of the tree’s remaining fruit, and this is a unique way to preserve them.
After those initial surprises come other inspired farm-to-fork plates, all vegetable forward dishes featuring the fresh, of-the-moment produce from their own fields — paper thin carpaccio of sliced baby zucchini with mint, atop the chef’s rich crème fraîche, sweet snap peas napped in a sharp white cheddar foam with toasted hazelnuts, asparagus with agribiche mayonnaise of chopped egg, and sustainably farmed Arctic char from the Okanagan, served with shaved Japanese turnip, tiny tatsoi leaves and savoury XO sauce.
The crusty sourdough bread served alongside comes with smoked butter and honey.
And a sweet finale — flourless chocolate cake with a local hazelnut cookie crumble and creamy labneh — ends the evening,just as the setting sun dips, blazing across the steep slopes that surround this lush valley.
FOOD FARMING FIRST
This notable restaurant is just one of the twists in the Klippenstein family’s ever-expanding story, one that started simply, with a young couple and a five-acre plot, some 20 years ago.
Annamarie and Kevin both grew up in the Fraser Valley and were working in the hospitality industry when they met. Annamarie Forstbauer had an organic farming background — her mother, Mary Forstbauer, being an organic grower near Abbotsford and leader in B.C.’s organic and biodynamic movement. Kevin, then a young hotel food and beverage manager, says it was required that he spend weekends harvesting vegetables with his girlfriend and selling them at the farmers’ market in White Rock, just to see her.
That’s where the dream of a move to the Okanagan began and, as luck would have it, their search for a restaurant to buy proved fruitless, while a chance meeting connected them with a woman who was selling her little certified organic orchard in Cawston.
It wasn’t easy — and it’s now hard to imagine them living in a trailer and planting vegetables between the fruit trees — but over the years, the pair persevered and the business grew. Slowly, they purchased additional land from retiring neighbours and now farm more than 60 acres of organic fruit and vegetables.
“This whole area was divided up into five-acre parcels,” explains Kevin as he walks past apple orchards, where chickens wander fields of mixed heirloom vegetables, and their modern cold storage, drying and packing facilities, where some 50 people are now employed, including a crew of seasonal workers from Jamaica.
“A lot of people had moved here to retire, but over the years many have sold, and we’ve been here to buy.”
Kevin had no experience farming, but learned quickly with help and advice from local farmers. “When we started farming at 26,we were just kids,” says Kevin, adding that now they have their own kids and young farm apprentices working on the farm. Evolving from certified organic to regenerative farming practices, they’re building healthy soil and trees that are resilient in a changing climate.
SIMILKAMEEN FIELDS TO CITY FORKS
From the beginning, the Klippensteins sold their fruit and vegetables at Vancouver farmers' markets and restaurants, building Klippers Organics into a brand known to Vancouver’s most savvy culinary consumers and chefs.
Every weekend, Kevin and now his eldest son, Brayden, make the four-hour drive from Cawston to Vancouver to bring their fruits, vegetables, baked goods and other farm-based products to the city, whether selling at the West End, Trout Lake and Kitsilano farmers’ markets or delivering directly to CSA box members and top restaurants, including The Acorn, Nightingale, Farmer’s Apprentice and Published on Main.
The Klippers Organics product list is vast — peaches, apples and pears, shishito and ghost peppers, tomatoes, garlic scapes, celeriac and melons — and it’s all grown organically or biodynamically, with solar and wind power. They mentor new farmers, donate produce to single-parent and low-income families, and have won many accolades, including the Outstanding Young Farmer of the Year and Organic B.C.’s Best Direct Farm Marketer awards.
Because so many top Vancouver chefs rely on Klippers Organics for their fresh ingredients, there are often long table dinners at the farm, including a recent 20th anniversary celebration featuring chefs from The Acorn, PiDGiN, Vij’s and others, plus local wineries, breweries and distilleries, attesting to the many relation-ships built by the farm family over the years.
AN AMAZING FARM MARKET
If you don’t have a dinner reservation at their restaurant, you can visit the Klippers marketplace/café for breakfast, lunch or just great grocery shopping.
Like Row Fourteen, the large building was designed by Penticton architect Norman Goddard and resembles an airy repurposed barn, with spaces for everything, from hidden kitchens and cold storage to sunny spots to eat.
Kevin’s mother, Anna Klippenstein, is the full-time barista behind the coffee and smoothie bars, while Gizelle Pare, a well-known Vancouver chocolatier, works here as a seasonal pastry chef, turning out Klippers pain au chocolat, double-baked almond croissants and cinnamon buns, and Row Fourteen’s desserts. Mai Nakazato, a chef trained in Japan and Italy, crafts an array of foods for Klippers Marketplace customers, too, whether it’s breakfast and lunch sandwiches, burgers and pizza or prepared soups and frozen takeaway meals.
Beyond all of Klippers’ own fresh produce in this large farm store, you’ll find handmade kitchen gifts from local artisans, jars of dried organic pantry staples, fresh-pressed organic fruit juices and freezers filled with toasted milk and cinnamon walnut ice cream.
Some of the products have the stylish Klippers Organic Acres house label — peach salsa, plum BBQ sauce, pickled carrots and asparagus — while others, including the beet ketchup, onion jam, smoked butter and bison bone broth, come straight from the Row Fourteen chefs.
Annamarie explains that the sauces, pickles and preserves (along with a facility for drying fruit) all grew out of a need to use up excess produce not sold through farm markets or CSA boxes, and have become an integral part of the Klippers brand.
“We’re really into zero waste,” she says, pointing out their peach leaf ice cream, dried cherries and fruity vinegar shrubs.
Many of their products, including a dozen varieties of cider, can also be ordered from their online shop for pickup or home de-livery in Vancouver and Okanagan communities. There’s even weekly salad and pastry program for local customers, delivered to nearby schools, and a year-round CSA food box program with weekly pickups for locals in Cawston or for Vancouver customers at farm markets and other locations.
FARMERS AND HARVEST HOSTS
The Klippensteins are more than farmers, they’re welcoming hosts, bringing urbanites and others to this valley to share their love of fresh, organic food. You can book a vacation suite in their comfortable guest house for a Similkameen holiday, come for their ongoing Row Fourteen dinner series, celebrating local food producers and winemakers, or visit while at-tending the annual fall wine festival in nearby Osoyoos.
As Harvest Hosts, they also accommodate RV road trippers for overnight farm stays, and after dinner at Row Fourteen, we park our camper van next to a row of old apple trees and turn in for a quiet night.
The Similkameen Valley is our go-to destination for cases of organic tomatoes, peaches, plums and fall fruits for preserving,and there are fruit stands lining this stretch of the Crowsnest Highway, as it winds through Keremeos to Cawston.
It’s a road we’re sure to travel again soon.
IF YOU GO:
Klippers Organic Acres | Row Fourteen
625 Mackenzie Rd., Cawston
@klippersorganics
@rowfourteen@klippers_suites
This story first appeared in Edible Vancouver & Wine Country magazine
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